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ROSA ABBOTT STORIES, 


THE 

YOUNG DETECTIVE 


OR, 


WHICH WON? 


BY 


ROSA ABB 


OTT 





BOSTON: 

LEE AND SHEPARD. 
1870. 



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Entered, uccording to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by 
LEE AND SHEPARD, 

Li tlie Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 

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ELECTROTYPED AT THE 
BOSTON STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY, 
19 Spring Lane. 


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COUSIN HERBIE. 


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ROSA ABBOTT STORIES. 


TO BE COMPLETED IN SIX VOLS. 


1. JACK OF ALL TRADES. 

2. ALEXIS THE RUNAWAY; or, Afloat in the 

World. 

3. TOMMY HICKUP; or, A Pair of Black Eyes. 

4. UPSIDE DOWN; or. Will and Work. 

5. THE YOUNG DETECTIVE; or. Which Won.? 

6. THE PINKS AND BLUES ; or. The Orphan 

Asylum. (In preparation.) 


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CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

The Great Robbery. — The Reward. . . 9 

CHAPTER II. 

Aunt Rhody’s Patient. 25 

CHAPTER III. 

Philip commences his Career 39 

CHAPTER IV. 

Mr. Caleb Wurtzel and Valet. . . .55 

» 

CHAPTER V. 

An Ugly Sprain 68 

CHAPTER VI. 

Philip’s Levees 81 

CHAPTER VII. 

Barney O’Roach’s Lift 95 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Ary 107 

CHAPTER TX. 

Father and Daughter. 120 


/ 


( 7 ) 


8 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER X. 


Barney in Limbo 


• 131 

CHAPTER XI. 

The Fire 


• 139 

CHAPTER XII. 

Carl Mentz 



CHAPTER XIII. 

The Wounded Man. - . 

* 

. 161 

CHAPTER XIV. 

The Old Woman 


• 173 

CHAPTER XV. 

A Discovery 

• 

. 1S4 

# 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Burt Stoddard 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Doctor Toolu 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

The Game Finished 



CHAPTER XIX. 

The Wages of Sin is Death. 


. 230 


CHAPTER XX. 


Conclusion, 


245 



THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE GREAT ROBBERY. THE REWARD. 

I T was the last day of school — a sticky, 
draggy dog-day, towards the last of 
July, — and Philip Augustus came home 
with a mountain of books hanging by a 
strap over his shoulder, and three large 
slates, which, being tacked together on the 
backs with little strips of leather and covered 
with a pasteboard cover, bore a strong re- 
semblance to a good-sized ledger. The 
slates he carried under his arm. 

” I declare ! ” said his mother, as he 
staggered through the back door into the 

( 9 ) 


10 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


kitchen, "you’re loaded down like a truck 
horse.” 

" Hoorah ! ” shouted he, as he brought 
his books down upon the table with a slam, 
and shuffled his slates on top of them. 
"Vacation’s come at last. No more school 
for seven weeks ; no more lessons, no com- 
positions.” 

In the exuberance of his joy he caught 
up one foot in his hand, and went hopping 
about the room on his remaining one, sing- 
ing, with expansive lungs, to the hilarious 
tune of " Yankee Doodle,” " Highty-tum-te- 
tum-te diddleum ! Highty-tum-te — ” 

" Don’t be so crazy,” interrupted his moth- 
er. " You look as though the blood would 
burst through your skin this minute. Do 
v/ipe your face, and go and sit down in 
the sitting-room till dinner is ready, and 
get cooled off a little.” 

"Say,” exclaimed the young hopeful, 
pulling out of his well-stuffed pocket, with 
some difflculty, his handkerchief, all done 
up in a hard ball, and wiping the perspi- 


THE GREAT ROBBERY. 


II 


ration off his face, are all my shirts and 
collars done up, and has Sue mended my 
stockings, and finished my duster, and made 
me a pin-ball? I’m going to pack right 
after dinner. I want to get all ready by 
to-night; I might get belated in the morn- 
ing, you know.” 

"Dear, dear!” said his mother; "one 
would think you were going to India, in- 
stead of ten miles in the horse cars to your 
uncle George’s. There’ll be time enough, 
I guess, to get everything ready.” 

"Where’s father?” exclaimed Philip, sud- 
denly starting on a new train of ideas. 
" Has he heard about the great robbery ? 
They’ve got big posters all round the 
streets. A lots of silver plate been stolen. 
The safe was broken into. Everything 
cleared out, as clean as a whistle, ‘and 
nothing to track the thieves by. There’s 
a rousing reward offered, too. I wish 
father’d try for it. He might just as well 
get it as anybody else. J’m going to tell 
him.” 


12 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


”I wonder if you’ll always be such a 
rattle-head. I guess you’ve waked father 
up. I thought I heard him calling you. 
He was taking a nap on the lounge in the 
sitting-room.” 

"Phil, my boy!” sounded through the 
shut door, in gruff, hearty tones. 

"So he is calling me. I didn’t hear 
him before ; ” and Philip made a dash 
through the door. 

The shutters were closed in the little 
sitting-room, and the curtains were down. 
It was quiet, and dark, and cool in there, 
and Mr. Sands, fhilip’s father, was lying 
upon the lounge, apparently just awaked 
from a sound sleep. 

" A-a-a-ah ! ” he yawned, gaping and 
stretching himself in a fearful manner. " I 
believe I’ve been to Noddle’s Island.” 

He raised himself up to a sitting pos- 
ture, and, stretching his arms over his 
head, yawned again, " A-a-a-ah- heigh-ho- 
hum ! What was that you were saying 


THE GREAT ROBBERY. 


13 


out there in t’other room? Eh, Phil, my 
boy?” 

"Phil, my boy,” was his favorite mode 
of address to this his only son. 

"I was asking if you knew anything 
about the great robbery,” began Phil. 

" Hey ? ” said his father, wide awake at 
once. "What great robbery? Nowhere 
near my beat — is it? When did it hap- 
pen?” 

So Philip launched forth into a glowing 
recital of all he had been able to learn 
from the huge posters that he had passed 
on his way home. The reward was what 
fired his soul the most. 

"Only think of it — a thousand dollars,” 
said he. " I don’t see, father, why you 
can’t go in and win. Being a policeman, 
too, you’ve a better chance to hunt up 
such things.” 

" Steady, steady there ! ” returned his 
father, smiling at his enthusiasm. " I never 
was any hand at striking a trail. If I ever 
got hold of anything of that sort, I blun- 


H 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


dered into it. And then, besides, how 
could I get leave to go trampoosing off 
nobody knows where, unless I was spe- 
cially put to it? No, no, my boy; don’t 
try to tease your father into any such tom 
fool’s errand.” 

Philip looked disappointed, which his 
fond father at once noticed. 

"Now, there’s Stevens, and Bruce, and 
Gage, and two or three other of them fel- 
lows, — smart as steel-traps, — that have a 
real genius for that sort of thing. They 
can worry ’em out, the way a cat does a 
rat. But such a lumberin’ elephant as I 
ain’t good for nothin’ but reg’lar work. In 
my partic’lar line, Phil, my bo}^ — in put- 
tin’ down a street riot, or holding my own 
against half a dozen roughs in open fight, 
— I can’t be beat. Not much.” Night 
policeman Sands stood up on his feet as 
he said this, and gazed at the small por- 
tion of him reflected in the glass over the 
mantel, with pardonable pride. 

Such a burly giant of a man could afibrd 


THE GREAT ROBBERY. 


15 


to boast a little about being " A No. i ” in 
his ” partic’lar line.” When his brawny 
hand closed, with its iron gripe, upon of- 
fenders of the law, they must have felt 
like poor little flies within the spider’s claws. 

" Dinner’s ready,” said his wife, popping 
in her head ; and then, as she popped it 
out again, "Call Susannah,” she jerked; 
for she was one of the driving kind, and 
on no account whatever was ever known 
to waste a minute of time. 

"Just rap for her, father, — will you? I’m 
so awful hot and tired,” remarked Philip, 
whose physical condition was brought home 
to him very forcibly, with the idea of for- 
warding himself into the front entry, and 
bawling up the stairs, at the top of his 
voice, for his sister. Of course this would 
be necessary, since the noise of the trucks 
and drays, and other heavy vehicles in the 
street, was at this hour of the day partic- 
ularly deafening. 

Mr. Sands’ head came within a foot of 
the rather low-studded ceiling, and it was 


1 6 THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 

a very easy thing for him to pound once, 
twice, and thrice against the plastering. 
An answering thump from above immedi- 
ately responded, and the next minute Su- 
sannah, or Sue, as everybody called her 
excepting her mother, came into the sit- 
ting-room swiftly, though with no bustle 
or hurry. 

” Why don’t you come, if you’re a cornin’,” 
sounded Mrs. Sands’ slightly acidulated 
voice at the door again ; and all three 
went in to dinner. 

The kitchen atmosphere was not so pleas- 
ant as that of the sitting-room, and the 
buzzing flies made it their business to be 
most impudent and saucy ; but the ham 
and eggs were done to a turn, the lettuce 
was crisp and cool, and the butter hard 
as a rock, while the snowy ice-pitcher 
sweated through all its pores, in a refresh- 
ing manner. 

Mrs. Sands, the magic genius who had 
conjured up this inviting repast, had a 
warmish streak under her eyes, but other- 


THE GREAT ROBBERY. 


17 


wise appeared comfortable. She was most 
happily fashioned to enjoy dog-days, since, 
from her spareness of flesh, she came as 
near to sitting down in her bones as any 
human being could, and live. 

Mr. Sands’ eye rested upon the pile of 
school-books his son had deposited upon 
the table. 

"Yours, eh, Phil?” said he. 

Philip nodded. 

" Well, I’m glad you’re out of that steam 
engine of a school, for a spell, any way. 
You can stretch your legs and grow a lit- 
tle now. Bless me ! I’d never have grown 
to my size, if I’d been put to sech things. 
When I was a boy, I went to school the 
three winter months, and then we used to 
lick the master for exercise about once a 
week, and roll him in the snow, whenever 
we got a chance.” 

Phil and his sister both laughed, but 
their mother exclaimed, rather impatiently, 
" How you do talk, Mr. Sands! Just as 
if the schools nowadays were not a hun- 


2 


1 8 THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 

dred times better than when we were 
young. Look at Susannah there. How 
many studies do you suppose she has taken 
up this term ? ” 

" Nine hundred and ninety-nine ? ” 

” Now, father,” said Sue, "you know 
better.” 

How many, then?” 

” Nineteen, with the languages,” replied 
the young lady, who was just turned of 
fifteen. 

"The languages,” echoed her father; 
” them’s the parley-vooing and the sham- 
pooing, and the dog-latin — ain’t they ? ” 

Phil burst into sudden laughter. " What’s 
dog-latin ? ” asked he. " I never heard of 
it before.” 

”Nor I, either,” cried his sister. 

"I used to study it when I went to 
school,” said their father. " I got so that 
I could talk it like a book.” 

"Talk some now,” exclaimed Philip. 

" I don’t know but Pve forgotten it,” was 
the reply ; " but Pll try. ' Wigery yougery 
gogery wigery megery ? ’ ” 


THE GREAT ROBBERY. I9 

Phil and Sue were convulsed with mirth, 
and Mrs. Sands smiled. 

" I do believe, father,” said this last, 
” that you’ll never be anything but a boy, 
if you live to the age of Methuselah.” 

A mellow chuckle came up from the 
broad chest of the big policeman, as he 
rose slowly from the table, and placed his 
chair back against the wall. 

" It’s about time for me to be thinking 
of business,” he remarked, as he glanced 
at the clock ; and taking up his hat, which 
lay on the window-seat, he nodded pleas- 
antly all around, and strode away, whistling. 

Sue helped her mother to clear off the 
table and wash the dishes, while Phil hung 
round, and asked many trying questions 
with regard to the capacities of his valise, 
and the precise minute, half minute, and 
second, when the different articles of his 
apparel — the new, the washed, and the 
mended — would be delivered over to him, 
ready for packing. 

It was finally with much satisfaction. 


20 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


when everything was seen to down stairs, 
and the three adjourned up one flight to 
the front chamber, that Philip commenced 
the pleasant task of laying, with great 
method and calculation, a four weeks’ sup- 
ply of clothing into his cotton trunk. 

” I’ll give you a week to stay,” remarked 
Sue. "You’ll be homesick by that time.” 

" Pooh ! homesick ! ” returned Philip, in 
disdain. " If I was a girl I might be.” 

He was particularly engaged, just then, 
with his shirts, whose snowy fronts were 
most beautifully waxed and polished ; for 
Philip was something of a dandy, and 
wore open jackets and low-cut vests. He 
laid them in one by one, without a crease. 
He also laid an open pocket-handkerchief 
over each shirt-bosom. 

"That,” said he to his mother, who was 
watching him curiously, "is to keep ’em 
from rubbing against each other and get- 
ting scratched.” 

• As he was speaking, his father came 
into the room with an open newspaper in 
his hand. 


THE REWARD. 


21 


I’ve been down to the station,” said he, 
taking a seat on the side of the bed, and 
that robbery of yours, Phil, has turned out 
a rather cur’ons affair.” 

" Have they caught the thief? ” asked 
Philip, eagerly: "who’s got the reward?” 

" Stevens, and Gage, and a lot of others 
from different places, have been down, and 
they say it’s the neatest job they ever see 
done. The rascals made a clean haul, 
and nobody knows, any more than the 
man in the moon, how to set to work to 
get hold of ’em. The old fellow they 
robbed is so hoppin’ mad, that he has 
raised the reward to two thousand dollars.” 

"You never do tell a story like other 
' folks, Mr. Sands,” said his wife. "For 
' ■ my part, Fd like to know what all this is 
f about.” 

"FU read it,” exclaimed Sue, who had 
taken the paper from her father, and had 
already devoured the startling colunm, with 
its heading of " Great Robbery Two 


22 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


Thousand Dollars Reward T' in heavy, 
black capitals a half an inch long. 

So Sue read : " The house of Mr. Caleb 
Wurtzel, at Thornewood, was robbed last 
night of a quantity of solid silver plate and 
some diamond jewelry of great value. The 
whole loss is estimated at not less than fifty 
thousand dollars. The rogues, two in num- 
ber, and closely masked, entered Mr. Wurt- 
zel’s room, and, holding a loaded pistol to 
his head, compelled him to accompany them 
and unlock the safe in which the valuables 
were kept. They then knocked him sense- 
less, after having gagged him and tied 
him hand and foot, and decamped with 
their booty. Mr. Wurtzel, although recov- 
ering consciousness early in the morning, 
was forced to remain in his uncomfortable 
position until the butcher who supplied the 
family drove up, in the middle of the fore- 
noon. Finding the doors wide open, and 
no signs of life anywhere round, the man 
entered the house, and found Mr. Wurtzel 
lying upon the dining-room floor, just as 


THE REWARD. 


23 


he had been left. He released him, and 
removed the gag from his mouth. The 
two then proceeded at once to the servants’ 
quarters, where three women servants, to- 
gether with the coachman, the inside man, 
the housekeeper, and Mr. Wurtzel’s valet, 
were found all gagged and bound in the 
same manner as their master. The valet had 
been gagged so barbarously that he was 
purple in the face. Fears are entertained 
that he will not recover. One thousand 
dollars was at once offered for the arrest 
of the thieves. The reward has since been 
raised to two thousand. No clew has yet 
been obtained of this audacious, Dick Tur- 
pin exploit.” 

Mrs. Sands drew a long breath. ” What 
is the world coming to ! ” she exclaimed ; 
" I’m thankful I’m not rich. I should ex- 
pect to be murdered in my bed.” 

'’Where’s Thornewood?” asked Sue. 

"It’s ten miles or so from here,” answered 
her father. " It’s a corner of some town 
where the nabobs live, that they’ve out off 


24 


Tim YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


lately and new named to suit themselves; 
so they said down to the station.” 

” Thornewood,” repeated Mrs. Sands ; 
" where have I heard that name before ? ” 
" I know,” cried Philip, jumping up from 
the floor and oversetting his valise, quite 
regardless of the shaken-up contents ; ” if s 
where uncle George . lives. It’s a part of 
his town.” 

"So it is,” said ^lis father; "how stupid 
I was not to think of it ! ” 

" Now, I suppose you’ll give up your 
visit,” put in Sue, slyly. 

"No, sir,” returned Philip ; "but I shall 
stay seven weeks, instead of four. And I’ll 
come home with the two thousand dollars 
reward in my pocket.” 

This was considered a first-rate joke by 
his father, and indeed by all ; but Philip’s 
last words, as he went to bed that night, 
were, " Get me up in good "season in the 
morning, mother. It won’t do for a detec- 
tive to oversleep himself in the very be- 
ginning. 


AUNT RHODY’s patient. 


25 


CHAPTER 11. 

AUNT RHODY’S patient. 

I N the morning Philip Augustus and 
valise took passage in the horse-cars 
for uncle George’s. It was a great event, 
this starting out into the wide, wide world 
alone, as you might say, for Philip had 
never been so far from home before. In- 
deed, he had never even so much as slept 
away from his parents one single night, 
and great incredulity was expressed when 
he declared he should stay away seven 
weeks. 

Sue persisted, up to the last minute, 
that he would be homesick by night; and 
his father, whose spirits were down to the 
lowest ebb, said, disconsolately, " I hope 
you will, Phil, my boy. It’ll be terrible 
lonely without you.” 


26 THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 

And there was a tremor round about his 

/ 

bearded lip, as he left the boy in the car, 
after having given him a great deal of 
blundering advice, as, to be sure and stop 
when he got there, and to get out the hind 
foremost end of the car, and to wait till ^it 
was done moving before he jumped off 
and got run over. 

Philip, who sat up very straight, listened 
with great dignity — being in the presence 
of strangers — to the harangue, and bade 
his father good by, at the very last, with 
the air of a Spartan going to battik. 

In a little less than an hour he arrived at 
his journey’s end. His cousin Seth was 
awaiting him at the terminus, with a paper 
bag full of doughnuts. And together they 
trudged and munched, with the valise be- 
tween them, up to the house. 

Uncle George’s house was a pretty brown 
wooden cottage, built with an ell and a 
piazza on the side, and with quite a little 
forest of shrubbery in front of it. There 
was a large green parrot in a tin cage. 


AUNT RHODY’s patient. 


27 


that was hanging from one of the trees, 
and little Mollie and her younger sister 
— who, from being so very, very little, was 
called Pinny — ran out, when they saw 
Philip at the gate, to meet him. 

Philip was no stranger to them, and they 
were delighted to see him. And then 
Philip went into the house with the three, 
and saw their mother, "aunt George,” as 
he called her. Seth lugged his valise up 
stairs, .and Philip was at home at once. 

In a few minutes Seth reappeared, and 
beings rather heated with his valise exer- 
cise, suggested an adjournment to the grass 
under the cherry tree. 

It was very pleasant out there in the cool 
shade. The boys threw themselves down 
full length ; but Mollie, who had been 
dressed up fresh in honor of her cousin 
Philip’s expected arrival, took out of her 
apron pocket the little square of linen 
that answered for her handkerchief, and* 
spread it upon the grass, and sat down 
upon it very demurely. Then, in a moth- 


28 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


erly way, most amusing to behold, she 
called Pinny to her, and took her in her 
lap. Above them the green parrot was 
swinging in his tin hoop, looking at them 
with his head perked to one side, and 
whistling and calling briskly, ” Heigh-ho ! ” 
" Poll, you are my darling,” ” O, what a 
fool!” see the thief!” ”’Tis the star- 
spangled banner,” and everything else he 
knew. 

Philip was much taken up with the par- 
rot, this being his first introduction to it. 
His uncle George had bought it but re- 
cently of a sailor, who had happened along. 

" Where’s aunt Rhody ? ” asked he of Seth, 
all of a sudden waking to the fact that he had 
not yet seen that particular member of the 
family. 

” She’s up to Mr. Wurtzel’s,” answered 
Seth, leisurely, chewing a spear of grass. 

"What, not the one that was robbed?” 

Seth nodded. 

"What’s she gone up there for?” 

"To take care of Mr. Schnapps.” 


AUNT RHODY’S patient. 


29 


” Who’s he?” 

"The chap that’s hurt so bad.” 

" O, the valet,” commented Philip. 
"Will he die?” 

" I don’t know, I’m sure, anything about 
it,” said Seth, lazily, not in the least con- 
cerned. It took a great deal to start Seth. 
He was one of your heavy, solid kind of 
boys, with a not too inquiring turn of 
mind. His school-teacher said of him that 
everything he learned had to be pounded 
into him. 

"How far is Mr. Wurtzel’s from here?” 
was Philip’s next question. " I want to go 
up there some tirne. I read all about the 
robbery in the paper.” He did not inform 
Seth that he was a candidate for the reward. 
If he had, I have no doubt that Seth would 
have been fully waked up for once, and 
opened his half-closed eyes to their widest 
extent. 

As it was, Seth turned himself over on 
one side, and rested his face in the hollow 
of his hand. 


30 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


Seems to me,” said he, "that there’s 
a bundle, or something or other, that mother 
told me I was to carry to aunt Rhody, 
some time to-day. You can go with me if 
you want to.” 

"Let’s go now,” exclaimed Philip, start- 
ing up^ all ready for action — " will you ? ” 

" O, no,” said Seth, looking slightly 
alarmed at his cousin’s energy ; " it’s too 
hot! Wait till the cool of the day, when 
the sun’s down. It’s all of a mile.” 

Philip, however, persisted, and finally 
carried the day. Indeed, if he had not, it 
would have been something strange. 

It was pretty warm, and the road was 
dusty. The boys stopped to put grape-vine 
leaves in the crowns of their hats, and 
rested once or twice under the shade of 
the trees by the roadside. 

As they proceeded, Philip learned from 
Seth that Mr. Wurtzel was a widower and 
childless ; that he lived in his big house 
all alone with the servants, and that he 
was very rich, "worth two or three hundred 


AUNT RHODY’s patient. 


31 


thousand millions of money,” as Seth had 
it; though this statement was probably a 
slight stretch of the young gentleman’s 
imagination. 

Presently they came in sight of a large, 
brown stone house, surrounded by the most 
beautiful grounds, sloping down gradually, 
by lawns and terraces, to the road. Foun- 
tains glistened from dense arbors of flower- 
ing trees, and the gravelled carriage-sweep 
wound in a curve towards the house, bor- 
dered on either side by English elms, whose 
feathery branjches interlocked in the centre, 
and formed a thick, green archway over- 
head. 

"That’s Mr. Wurtzel’s,” said Seth. Phil- 
ip gazed admiringly, and lagged a little 
behind his cousin, as his eyes took in, one 
by one, the beauties spread out before 
him. Seth, being familiar with them, was 
not particularly struck. He was freighted, 
too, with the bundle for his aunt, and he 
was in a hurry to rid himself of his bur- 
den. He turned into the avenue, leaving 


32 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


his companion standing in the road ; and 
Philip, looking around the next instant, dis- 
covered that his cousin was out of sight, 
and a man — a rather rough-looking one 
— was standing within a few steps of 
him. 

" Here, youngster,” said this man, in a 
half-suppressed tone, ” do you belong to 
the house up ynnder.” 

” No,” answered Philip, wondering where 
the man could have sprung from, all of a 
sudden. " I’m only going there on an 
errand.” 

"Will you inquire how the sick man 
is ? ” continued the stranger. 

" O, yes,” said Philip ; " my aunt is tak- 
ing care of him;” 

" I would go up to the house myself, 
but Pm on the lookout for some one that 
I expect past here every minute, and I’m 
afraid I should miss him.” 

Here Seth’s voice was heard issuing from 
the avenue. "Where are you, Phil?” he 


AUNT RHODY’s patient. 


33 


cried. "Why don’t you come along? It’s 
splendid and shady here.” 

"I’ll be back soon,” said Philip over his 
shoulder; and then he darted after Seth, 
going up the avenue on a full run. 

They went to a side door and knocked, 
and on its being opened, Seth asked for 
Miss Ruggles. 

" You’d better come right up stairs where 
she is, if you want to see her,” said the 
maid ; and she showed them the way, and 
pointed out the room. 

The door stood wide open, and a large 
green screen was placed directly before it. 
The two stepped noiselessly across the 
threshold, and Seth, putting his head round 
the corner of the screen, saw his aunt sit- 
ting by the bed, on which Mr. Schnapps 
lay. 

"Aunt Rhody,” called he in a whisper. 

She turned round at once. " Is that 
you, Seth?” said she; and she got up and 
came behind the screen. " How do you 
3 


34 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


do, Philip?” she added, on seeing who 
was with him. 

”Here is the bundle,” remarked Seth, 
proffering it to her, ” and mother wants 
you to look and see if she has sent the 
right things.” 

" It is all right,” answered his aunt, 
opening it and glancing at what was in- 
side. 

” How is Mr. Schnapps? ” asked Philip ; 
"is he any. better?” 

"Yes, he is out of danger now. If 
nothing happens, he will pick up rapidly.” 

"There was a man out at the gate, who 
asked me if I would inquire about him. 
He was watching, he said, for some one 
he expected along, and he didn’t like to 
come up to the house for fear of missinp- 
him.” 

" Some friend, probably,” said aunt 
Rhody. "Come with me, Seth; I have 
got some grapes for you, and some things 
to send home. Philip, you go and sit 
down over there by the window, and rest. 


AUNT RHODY’S patient. 


35 


You will not disturb Mr. Schnapps. He 
is asleep.” 

Philip tiptoed along to the window, and • 
sat down where he was directed ; then he 
cast a furtive glance towards aunt Rhody’s 
patient. He gave a start, for the sick 
man’s eyes were wide open, and regarding 
him intently. 

Immediately as he caught Philip’s eye 
he beckoned him with his hand, and when 
Philip, obeying the gesture, came to him, 
he wrote with a pencil, on a slate that lay 
beside him, "Who was the man at the 
gate?” 

The sick man’s throat was bandaged up, 
and Philip understood readily that he could 
not talk. 

" I don’t know who he was,” he said, 
in answer to the question that he read on 
the slate. " He was short and thick, and 
his hat was slouched over his face.” 

An expression of hate lit up Mr. Schnapp’s 
small gray eyes, as he wrote, " Tell him 


3 ^ 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


I know him, and shall soon be able to see 
him.” 

The effort of writing such a long sen- 
tence seemed to exhaust him, and he sank 
back, his face ghastly. 

"Shall I call aunt Rhody? Shall I call 
the nurse?” asked Philip, hastily, half 
turning for the purpose. 

But Mr. Schnapp’s hand clutched his, 
and he managed to say, in a spasmodic 
whisper, "No.” He appeared to be much 
excited. With difficulty he wrote on his 
slate, "Keep all that has passed between 
us a secret. You will not be sorry.” 

Then, at the sound of voices in the entry, 
he motioned him to his seat at the window ; 
and aunt Rhody, coming in with Seth 
the next moment, found Philip looking out 
the window, and her patient as sound 
asleep as ever. 

Philip’s thoughts were busy as he went 
out of the house with his cousin. He de- 
termined to keep what had happened a 
secret, at least for the present. As for 


AUNT RHODY’s patient. 


37 


telling Seth, he was not particular about 
that any way ; for Seth, being so very mat- 
ter-of-fact, would only " pooh” at Philip’s 
making a wonder or a mystery over such 
a little thing. 

But if the man was waiting for him, 
there in the open road, in plain sight, how 
could Seth help seeing him speak to him, 
or keep from hearing what was said? 

Sure enough, when they emerged from 
the avenue, Philip saw the man, walking 
slowly, with his hands behind his back, 
some distance down the road. 

A simple stratagem at once occurred to 
him. "Come, Seth,” said he, " let’s run a 
race down to the end of Mr. Wurtzel’s 
iron fence.” 

Feeling cooled off and refreshed, Seth 
agreed at once. He prided himself on 
being a good runner. At first, the boys 
kept abreast; then Seth, with a note of 
triumph, shot ahead, and when he reached 
the goal, Philip was a yard or two behind. 

Seth, as he crowed good-naturedly over 


38 THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 

his friend, was ignorant that he had 
stopped, midway in his race, to speak to 
the man, whom he only remembered as 
having caught up with and passed. 

But so it was. Philip’s stratagem had 
worked. He had kept faith with aunt 
Rhody’s patient, and delivered his message 
to the man who had inquired for him at 
the gate, without anybody’s knowledge. 


PHILIP COMMENCES HIS CAREER. 39 


CHAPTER III. 

PHILIP COMMENCES HIS CAREER. 

U NCLE GEORGE RUGGLES was a 
little man, thin and spare, with a big, 
bald spot on top of his head, over which 
he brushed up the ends of his hair into as 
fierce and stiff a tuft as his rather scant 
material would allow of. He did a snug 
little business in a snug little shop down 
by the town hall. 

It was a tin shop ; and upon opening the 
door and walking in, you must be possessed 
of a very strong pair of eyes not to be daz- 
zled with the array of new tin pans, pails, 
coffee-pots, wash-boilers, and the like, 
ranged tier above tier, upon the shelves. 

The quantity of shiny tin plates, knives, 
forks, and every other article of dolls’ house- 
hold ware that Mollie and Pinny were pro- 


40 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


vided with, was a fortune to any little girl 
fond of baby-house playing. And what little 
girl, I should like to know, in all the world, 
is not? 

Mr. Ruggles’ business was always driving. 
He ate his early breakfast about the time the 
cockerels commence their shrill crowing ; 
his dinner he took down town ; and his sup- 
per was an irregular meal, which he snatched 
in such a hurry that no one dared address a 
remark to him, lest he should strangle in 
attempting to answer it. 

The town bells rung nine in the evening 
before the tin shop shutters were closed, 
and Mr. Ruggles was free to enjoy himself 
in the bosom of his family. At this time, 
as may be supposed, Mollie’s peepers, and 
of course Pinny’s, too, were fast glued 
together, and they were sound asleep, side 
by side, in their crib. 

Seth also was generally in dream-land. 
Only Mrs. Ruggles was always to be found 
seated by the table, in the strong light of 


PHILIP COMMENCES HIS CAREER. 4I 

the shaded globe lamp, stitching away for 
dear life. 

The first night of Philip’s arrival, Seth 
felt particularly sleepy. As early as eight 
o’clock, he began to yawn and rub his 
eyes. 

” Don’t you want to go to bed, Phil?” 
gaped he. 

"No, indeed,” was Phil’s answer;/' not till 
I’ve seen uncle George. I’ve hardly spoken 
to him yet.” 

"We can go down to the store to-morrow.” 

" There’s always some customer in that 
he has to attend to.” 

Seth flung himself full length on the sofa, 
with his mouth all agape again, like a mam- 
moth cavern, and Philip took up the evening 
paper, and looked over the day’s news. 

Presently his aunt came and sat down 
beside him, with her basket of work. " Seth 
is fast asleep,” said she, smiling; and a bois- 
terous snore from the sofa bore proof to her 
words. 

Philip laid down his paper, — he was hold- 


42 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


ing it upside down, — and asked, abruptly, 
” Do you know any man that lives round 
here that squints ? ” 

" What a funny question ! ” said his aunt. 
"What do you want to know that for?” 

"I met a man up by Mr. WurtzeFs gate 
this afternoon, that asked me if I knew how 
the sick man was.” 

" Some friend of Mr. Schnapps, I sup- 
pose.” 

"That was what aunt Rhody said.” 

"Was he the one that squinted?” 

"Yes,” answered Philip, "with his left 
eye.” 

" Dear, dear,” laughed his aunt ; " how 
very precise I One would think you were 
a detective.” 

It was now Philip’s turn to smile, know- 
ingly. 

"Then you can’t think of any one that 
squints?” said he. 

. "Not of any man,” answered she, sus- 
pending her needle in the air, while she 
thought; "but there’s little Sammy Board- 


PHILIP COMMENCES HIS CAREER. 43 

man, at the foot of the hill ; he squints ter- 
ribly with both, his eyes. You never can 
tell which way he is looking, whether at 
you, or at somebody across the street.” 

Philip said privately to himself, that his 
aunt was getting wide of the mark ; but 
audibly he responded, " Perhaps uncle 
George will know. I will ask him when 
he comes home.” 

He took up the paper again, and seemed 
to become quite absorbed with its contents ; 
but in reality he was not reading one word 
of the printed sheet he held before him. 
His thoughts were busy with something 
else. 

That something else was the man he had 
seen at Mr. Wurtzel’s gate that afternoon. 
It was during the delivery of Mr. Schnapp’s 
message, in the short pause he had made 
beside him, with Seth bowling ahead, like 
a race-horse, that he had discovered, in spite 
of the slouched hat, that the man squinted 
slightly with his left eye. 

What had passed between himself and Mr. 


44 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


Schnapps had greatly stimulated his curiosi- 
ty with regard to this individual. Why had 
Mr. Schnapps betrayed such hate on his be- 
ing described? Why, in the first place, had 
he made such an effort to inquire about him 
at all? And why, again, was he so anxious 
that these inquiries of his should be kept 
secret? 

His wits were not gone wool-gathering 
long. The idea grew that the strange man 
must be an enemy to the valet ; that he had 
done him some great injury, and that he was 
still in fear of him. And from this Philip 
jumped to the conclusion that the rough- 
looking man was one of the thieves that had 
entered Mr. Wurtzel’s house the night of the 
robbery. Perhaps he was t% special one 
who had gagged Mr. Schnapps, and had 
come thus near to adding murder to his 
other crime of burglary. Philip could not 
congratulate himself enough on his 'saga- 
ciousness in thus quickly striking the trail. 
He could .not help slapping his hand on his 


PHILIP COMIMENCES HIS CAREER. 45 

pocket. He already felt there the two thou- 
sand dollars rewar^ 

All that troubled him now was his thought- 
lessness in having allowed this prize robber 
to slip through his fingers. 

” I ought to have followed him,” said he ; 
and he mourned and mourned over this first 
misstep in the new and exciting career which 
seemed so auspiciously to have opened before 
him. 

He determined to pursue his course with 
all the secrecy possible. The first thing, he 
decided, was to hunt up the man with the 
squint in his left eye. 

How should he go to work to do it? He 
still said nothing to Seth ; but in the evening 
he broached the subject, as we have seen, to 
his aunt. Not 'being successful here, he 
waited impatientl}^ for his uncle George. 

Finally, the ” scrape, scrape ” of his shoes 
was heard on the iron outside ; the front door 
was opened with a latch key, then shut, and 
Philip saw him, wiping his shoes on the entry 
door mat. A nicer or more particular man 


46 


THE -YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


than Mr. Ruggles would have been hard to 
find. He had a nail fqf his coat, and one 
for his hat. After having hung these articles 
up in their places, he made his appearance 
in the sitting-room in his shirt sleeves. 

" What, Philip ! ” he exclaimed, as if sur- 
prised. ” You up?” 

” He is one of the wide-awake ones, you 
know,” remarked his wife. 

”Yes, yes, just so,” answered Mr. Rug- 
gles, rubbing his hands, as though he liked 
the joke. " Bless me,” he added, '' what’s 
that?” for at this moment the soporific Seth 
came out with a prolonged snore, suggestive 
at once of a chorus of handsaws. 

Mrs. Ruggles nodded towards the sleep- 
er, curled up, like a ball, upon the wide sofa 
seat. 

" O,” said her husband, "is that where the 
music comes from? Well, Philip,” seating 
himself comfortably in a Tocking-chair, " I’m 
glad you have made up your mind to give us 
a long visit. I hope you will be contented. 
Not homesick yet, eh?” 


PHILIP COMMENCES HIS CAREER. 47 

No, sir,” answered Philip, " nor going 
to be.” 

” Thaf s right. Seth was delighted enough 
at the idea of your coming. What have you 
two been up to, to-day? ” 

” We went to Mr. Wurtzefs this morning.” 

"A bad thing that robbery they had up 
there night before last. I suppose you read 
all about it in the papers. What does your 
father think of it? There was a whole posse 
of policemen down from the city yesterday, 
but I didn’t see him amqtigst them, though I 
rather looked for him.” 

" No,” said Philip, ” he wouldn’t have any- 
thing to do with it. I wanted him to try for 
the reward.” 

"Your father, though, ain’t hardly one of 
the kind to take such a thing in tow. Wor- 
rying such a desperate set of chaps into the 
ground is a pesky sort of business, so they 
tell me. How did you find aunt Rhody’s 
patient to-day ? ” 

"'Didn’t I tell you at supper time that he 


48 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


was out of danger? I meant to,” put in Mrs. 
Ruggles. 

” You might have, and I have been in too 
much of a hurry to notice.” 

" Uncle,” asked Philip, who found it sim- 
ply impossible to refrain any longer from the 
all-absorbing question, " do you know any 
man round here that squints with his left 
eye?” 

"Eh?” said his uncle, leaning forward, 
as though he were not sure he had heard 
aright. 

Mrs. Ruggles laughed, and Philip repeated 
his question again. 

"A man that squints with his left eye,” 
repeated uncle George, slowly. "No, I 
can’t say that I do. All our neighbors are 
blessed with two straight eyes. The only 
trouble is, they use them a little too sharp, 
sometimes.” 

" I don’t see but you’ll have to advertise in 
the papers, Philip,” said his aunt. 

"Why, what is it? anything important?” 
inquired uncle George, rather puzzled. 


PHILIP COMMENCES HIS CAREER. 49 

” O, no,” replied Philip, trying to speak 
unconcernedly ; ” only I saw the man up by 
Mr. WurtzeFs, and I thought you might know 
him.” 

Just then Seth gave an uneasy fling, and 
rolled heavily off the sofa. He landed upon 
the floor in a sitting posture. The sudden 
bump partially aroused him, and he opened 
his eyes and looked round, blinking and 
winking with the expression of a young 
owlet abruptly tumbled out of its shady nest 
into the blinding glare of midday. 

His appearance was greeted with a shout 
of laughter. 

" Halloa, Seth ! don’t you know who hit 
you?” called Philip. ” If you want me to. 
I’ll show you the way to bed. I was just 
thinking of going.” 

Philip helped himself to one of the bright 
tin candlesticks that stood upon the mantel, 
and lit the tallow dip, some of Mrs. Ruggles’ 
own make, with a match from the tin match- 
safe. 

By this time Seth had gathered himself 

4 


50 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


off the floor, and stood ready to follow him, 
and, with a ” good night ” to his aunt and 
uncle, Philip led the way. 

The next few days Seth, notwithstanding 
the admiration he bore his cousin, grumbled 
at him incessantly. 

" I don’t see,” said he, ” what you want to 
go trampoosing all the time for.” 

And, indeed, he had good grounds for this 
protest, for Philip seemed possessed to scour 
through the town, and through every by-way, 
and alley, and obscure lane in it, with seem- 
ingly no other object in view than that of 
posting himself up in the geography of the 
place, or of surveying its minutest beauties. 

Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Ruggles thought 
again of the man with the squint in his left 
eye. As far as Seth were they from ima- 
gining that he was the star and goal of Phil- 
ip’s daily journey ings. 

Finally, even Mrs. Ruggles objected to 
these excursions, from which the boys re- 
turned dusty and foot-sore, with their blood 
heated to the boiling point, and their clothes 


PHILIP COMMENCES HIS CAREER. 5 1 

"wringing wet,” as she expressed it, with 
perspiration. 

Then Philip abruptly discontinued them, 
and his aunt extolled his obedience ; though 
this may have had something to do with it : 
He had come to the conclusion that the per- 
son he was in search of was not to be found 
in town. 

More than ever he reproached himself for 
not having made hay while the sun shone, 
and for letting his two thousand dollar fish 
escape unhooked, when it had swum, as it 
were, right up to him. 

What was to be done now? Should he 
give notice to the authorities? He would 
be none the better off then. It was his duty, 
perhaps, but it was the prize he wanted. He 
fell into a brown study over it, one evening, 
just after tea. He was sitting on a little 
wooden bench, screened from the road by 
the thick foliage of the arbor vitae ; and, for 
a wonder, he was alone, Seth having been 
detained in the house to do up some chores 
for his mother, while Mollie and Pinny were 


52 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


up in the baby-house, undressing their dolls 
and rocking them to sleep with sweetest lul- 
labies. 

Philip heard the roll of carriage wheels, 
and, peeping through his green screen, 
saw a close carriage draw up at the gate. 
Inside were aunt Rhody, and, propped up by 
pillows, Mr. Schnapps. 

Aunt Rhody alighted and walked up to- 
wards the house. She passed Philip without 
seeing him, and something prompted him 
not to speak, or attract her attention. When 
she had disappeared, he turned and watched 
Mr. Schnapps. 

He was evidently far along on the road of 
recovery, but he was still frightfully pale. 
The carriage window was down beside him, 
and he leaned forward and drew in deep 
draughts of the sweet-scented summer air, 
as though if were elixir. Was he thinking, 
poor man, how very near he had come 
to never breathing in again any of this 
warmth and balminess? Philip wondered 
if he was. 


PHILIP COMMENCES HIS CAREER. 53 

Suddenly the green parrot fluttered through 
the trees, and, with a laugh, perched himself 
on the edge of the carriage window, by Mr. 
Schnapps. Sultan was the parrot’s name. 
He was very tame, and was frequently, to- 
wards the close of the day, released from his 
cage, and allowed to go where he pleased. 
He never flew far from home, and always 
returned punctually, to be shut up for the 
night. 

Mr. Schnapps regarded Sultan pleasant- 
ly. ” Pretty Poll,” said he, softly, cautiously 
stretching out his hand and stroking his 
glossy feathers. 

Sultan gave another harsh laugh, and 
called out in his loudest key, ” I see the 
thief! ” 

Some sort of a fiercely-muttered word es- 
caped Mr. Schnapps, and he started back 
with an evil look at the parrot. Then his 
hand darted out like lightning, and if Poll 
had not ducked his head and flown away, 
his golden green neck would have been 
wrung like a barn-yard chicken’s. 


54 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


After Sultan had happily escaped, Mr. 
Schnapps glanced from the window furtive- 
ly, as if fearful lest he had been observed. 
Seeing nobody, and hearing the coachman 
stamping his feet upon his box, and whis- 
tling noisily, he seemed reassured. 

He did not know of the sharp watch sta- 
tioned behind the arbor vitae trees that hedged 
the garden fence. 


MR. CALEB WURTZEL AND VALET. 55 


CHAPTER IV. 

MR. CALEB WURTZEL AND VALET. 

M r. CALEB WURTZEL was an 
American born and bred, and so 
were his grandfather and his great grand- 
father before him. But before, that his an- 
cestry had been cradled in Germany, and 
hence his foreign name. 

He was very rich. He had his city man- 
sion, his country-seat at Thornewood, and 
his shooting-box at the sea-side. There had 
been a Mrs. Wurtzel. But that had been 
a good many years ago, and he was all alone 
now, with no family and no relations to share 
in his state and riches. He was a man of 
some fifty 37ears, florid-faced, heavy-limbed, 
short, and of a becoming portliness. He 
was a little surly at times, but he could afford 
to be ; and, on the whole, there was little fault 


5 ^ 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


to be found with him. Though rather osten- 
tatious in his charities, he gave to the poor 
with no niggardly hand ; and the servants 
that composed his household were wise 
enough to kn(5w that they were well off, 
and, with but few exceptions, had kept their 
places for years. Mr. Wurtzel’s valet was 
one of these exceptions. His master had 
picked him up in a jaunt through the coun- 
try, with no recommendation at all. But 
being struck with his manners and appear- 
ance, he had trusted to his own powers of 
discernment, and engaged him. 

The very pink of valets did Mr. Schnapps, 
William Schnapps, prove to be. And in a 
few months his master treated him more 
like a friend and companion than a servant. 
Unlike many others, Mr. Schnapps took 
upon himself no airs in consequence. He 
continued on in the even tenor of his way, 
brushed his master’s coats with as much care 
as ever, waited upon him with the same def- 
erence, and won the good will of everybody 
by his unassuming affability. 


MR. CALEB WURTZEL AND VALET. 57 

When, then, he lay at death’s gates, great 
was the public commiseration. If he had 
been Mr. Wurtzel’s own son, that gentleman 
could not have mourned more over him ; so 
everybody said. Why, he even declared 
that the loss of his fifty thousand dollars’ 
worth of silver was as nothing, compared 
to the ruffianly treatment that Mr. Schnapps 
had undergone. Mr. Wurtzel’s word was 
good. Just think of it ; in this cast-iron age 
one man lived who valued another’s flesh 
and bones above a fortune. It was with 
tears in his eyes that this wonderful, rich 
man dwelt upon his valet’s devotion and 
fidelity on the memorable night of the rob- 
bery. It seems that the ruffians had waked 
the valet out of a deep sleep, and, standing 
beside his bed, had threatened to blow his 
brains out, unless he did what they requested 
of him. He got up and followed them, they 
holding their pistols ready cocked in their 
hands, to the dining-room. There, on their 
making known what they desired him to 
do, they gave him the keys to the safe. 


58 THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 

which held the silver, saying, No squeam- 
ishness and no dilly-dallying, if you want to 
keep breath in your body.” He felt the cold 
muzzle of one of the pistols pressed against 
his temple, but ''death was preferable to dis- 
honor ; ” these were Mr. Schnapps own 
words, and he utterly refused to unlock the 
safe and give them possession of his master’s 
treasure. This was a very cool thing for a 
man in his situation to do. But he reasoned 
that he did not think they would dare put 
their threat into execution, and blow his brains 
out, since the noise might arouse the house, 
and thus they might be put to flight. It was 
money they wanted — not his life. 

His surmise had been correct ; for, on his 
second refusal, his hands were clapped be- 
hind him, he was bound firmly, two gags 
were roughly forced down his throat, and 
he was dragged just outside of the dining- 
room. He heard the thieves go up stairs 
again, stealthily, and saw them, by the light 
of the dark lantern they carried, come back 
accompanied by Mr. Wurtzel. He saw them 


MR. CALEB WURTZEL AND VALET. 59 

force the safe-keys into his hands with the 
same threat they had muttered in his ear, 
and he trembled lest Mr. Wurtzel should 
refuse, as he had done. It would have been 
certain death for him, for it was probably 
well known to the thieves that their hopes 
of getting the silver would then be over, 
the valet and his master being the only two 
who understood the complicated lock. As 
for their picking it, the chances were small. 
Out of revenge, then, made desperate at be- 
ing thus baffled, Mr. Wurtzel would be sac- 
rificed. Happily, however, he unhesitatingly 
shot back the bolts, and his life was saved. 
Such was the sum and substance of the story 
that poor Mr. Schnapps . related by piece- 
meal, in short sentences, written upon his 
slate, during the first few days, wfflen his life 
hung in the balance. 

Mr. Wurtzel, as I have said, was deeply 
affected by the foregoing, and vowed it 
should not go unrewarded. 

Standing by Mr. Schnapps’ bed, when he 
was first pronounced out of danger, he said, 


6o 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


" William, promise to stay with me as long 
as I live, and at my death you shall be left 
a rich man. I have no family, no near re- 
lations ; nobody th*at I care particularly for, 
nobody that cares much for me. Certainly, 
in all the wide world, none would have risked 
his life for me as you have done. If I leave 
the bulk of my property to you, no other per- 
son will be defrauded of his rights. Say, 
then ; will you stay ? ” 

The valet pressed feebly Mr. Wurtzel’s 
hand, and wrote on his slate, ” Dear sir, I 
will stay ; but there is no need to bribe me 
to it. Do not speak of your death. No 
amount of money would be a gain at such 
a price. I trust you will outlive me many 
years.” 

" Not at all likely, William,” answered his 
master, cheerily ; " those spells I have when 
my head seems spinning round like a whirl- 
igig, are growing worse _and worse. I 
shouldn’t wonder if I went off in one of them 
any time.” 

The valet pressed Mr. Wurtzel’s hand 


MR. CALEB WURTZEL AND VALET. 6l 


again, and expressed, in dumb show, that 
he did not believe his last remark. 

The next day a lawyer was summoned, 
and Mr. Wurtzel’s will was altered. Aunt 
Rhody and the housekeeper were called as 
witnesses, and duly signed their names ; but 
how much Mr. William Schnapps was to 
inherit, at the death of his master, was 
known to nobody besides the lawyer and 
the two most concerned. 

Report made the sum a startling one, and 
the valet was looked upon as an enviously 
fortunate man, while the gentry round won- 
dered at " Wurtzel’s being so crazy,” and 
said, rather testily, that ” of course the fel- 
low,” meaning the valet, "would be above 
his level now.” 

Thus Rumor spread her wings, and Gos- 
sip tittle-tattled, as she always will. But Mr. 
Schnapps, the ver}^ head and front of it all, 
seemed to be the least concerned person in 
the community. 

And finally the nine days’ wonder began 
to dwindle down, the Wurtzel household was 


62 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


dropping gradually into its common, every- 
day routine, and aunt Rhody’s patient gave 
promise of becoming soon as good as new. 

One week, two weeks, had passed,. but the 
Wurtzel robbery still remained a mystery. 
The sharpest detectives had in vain sought 
a clew that would lead to the apprehension 
of the thieves ; and one by one they with- 
drew from the attempt, completely baffled. 
The opinion gained ground that the silver 
had been melted down. In this form it 
could have been disposed of before now, 
with little risk of detection. 

Philip had been wise in keeping his pre- 
sumptuous hopes a secret. How these gray- 
head^d men, these lynx-eyed, sharp-sensed 
men, wKo knew all the ins and outs, twists 
and turns, of whole labyrinths of crimes, to 
whom even a pin scratch was a revelation, 
who could almost smell a trail like blood- 
hounds, — how such as these would have rid- 
iculed this little bantam of a detective, who 
was desirous of flapping his wings and 


MR, CALEB WURTZEL AND VALET. 63 

crowing as loud, nay, a little louder than 
the rest ! 

His unsuccessful wild-goose chase after 
the man he had met at Mr. Wurtzel’s gate 
had cooled his ardor somewhat. The con- 
duct of Mr. Schnapps, too, also puzzled 
him. For though he had managed to make 
many errands to aunt Rhody, and thus 
come in contact with her patient, and had 
twice been left alone with him, not a single 
word with regard to what he had so anxious- 
ly required to be kept secret had escaped 
his lips. 

Philip worked the problem in his head. 
Perhaps Mr. Schnapps had been for the 
time delirious, and retained no recollection 
of the event at all. Perhaps he had had his 
senses, but, being weak and unnerved, had 
made a great thing out of nothing, and now 
thought it not worth his while to speak of 
it ; and perhaps it was, indeed, as grave and 
serious a matter as Philip had first imagined, 
only Mr. Schnapps, seeing that he had gone 
the right way to work (that is, if Philip had 


64 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


not kept faith with him ; and he had no guar- 
antee for that) to set people wondering and 
questioning, now determined to take the op- 
posite course, and throw folks off the track 
by his apparent carelessness and forgetful- 
ness of the whole affair. 

So the days went by, and no new light 
^ dawned upon Philip, until the night when 
he sat on the little bench under the arbor 
vitae trees, and watched Mr. Schnapps and 
the green parrot. 

The idea he thus received was staggering. 
He would hardly have dared to put it into 
words, but he determined to sift it to the 
bottom. 

He looked after the carriage as long as it 
was in sight. And then, feeling restless, 
uneasy, and excited, he had slipped through 
the gate, and followed along in the same 
direction. Hardly knowing where he was 
tending, he found himself, at last, in Mr. 
Wurtzel’s avenue of elms. 

It was dusk by this time. The glow- 
worms were twinkling in the bushes, and 


MR. CALEB WURTZEL AND VALET. 65 

the new moon, with its horned tips, was 
shining bright above him. It was a perfect 
summer s night. The grass was dewless. 
A lady might have walked out in a trailing 
white dress and thin slippers without get- 
ting either drabbled or dampened. 

Philip turned a curve in the avenue, and 
came square upon aunt Rhody, who was 
sauntering along, in the costume described 
above, enjoying the beauties of the evening. 

Philip obeyed his first impulse, which was 
to start and run. He jumped sidewise into 
the bushes, and, like the " wicked that flee 
when no one pursueth,” he scampered " o’er 
thicket and fell,” till, suddenly one of his 
feet turned under him, and he dropped, with 
a low cry, to the ground. Such a thrill of 
pain ran through him, that for a few minutes 
he lay faint and motionless, just as he had 
fallen. Then he attempted to rise ; but the 
pain in his foot was so intense, that he sat 
down again, with his back against a tree. 

Then he began to wonder why he had 
been so startled at sight of aunt Rhody. 

5 


66 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


"What did I run away for?” thought he. 
" It was no stranger for me to be walking out 
and taking the air than for her. She would 
have thought nothing of it. This turning 
and twisting in my head upsets me some- 
times, I do believe,” and in spite of the pain, 
he could not help laughing at this last thought. 

"And a pretty tough upset this is,” he 
continued. "What’s to become of me to- 
night, I wonder. I don’t care much about 
staying here ; but I can’t walk. Besides, it’s 
so dark I don’t know where I am. If I 
scream, perhaps nobody’ll hear me. Then 
they’ll ask, first thing, how I came here, 
and aunt Rhody will wonder, and Seth will 
ask no end of questions. I’ve a good mind 
to crawl home on my hands and knees.” 

But his first slight motion brought back 
the pain, and he sank, limp and nerveless, 
to the support of his tree again. 

And while her nephew was in this helpless 
condition, aunt Rhody was rambling over 
the grass, sniffing at all the sweet smells 
in the air round about her, and feeling de- 


MR. CALEB WURTZEL AND VALET. 67 

lightfully easy and comfortable in her cool, 
white wrapper and soft, list slippers. With 
regard to Philip, she had not seen him at 
all, and the rustle he had made in the bushes 
had not disturbed, for a moment, the calm 
serenity in which she was absorbed. 


68 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


CHAPTER V. 

AN UGLY SPRAIN. 

I T seemed to Philip as if he were awaking 
out of a deep, deep sleep. He opened 
his eyes, and then shut them again, not com- 
prehending, in the least, where he was, only 
feeling very dull and very heavy, and wholly 
unable to exert himself. 

There was a confused sound somewhere 
near him, like the humming of bees or the 
murmur of voices, he was too drowsy to de- 
termine which, until these words aroused 
him : — 

”Now, what I want to know. Snake Lar- 
kin, without any more chaffing, either, is, 
just how much of the dust old Wurtzel was 
fool enough to will you.” 

” Hush, Bart,” some one replied, almost 
in a whisper ; '' you are speaking quite loud. 


AN UGLY SPRAIN. 


69 


This is not the safest place for either you or 
me to be. And it is high time I was back 
in my bed, where my nurse left me, a quar- 
ter of an hour ago, for a promenade in the 
avenue yonder.” 

”Hang the being safe,” said the other 
voice, ” and the nurse, and the bed, and you 
in the bargain. I’ve been skulking round 
here long enough for the chance of seeing 
you, and I’ve lain, days at a time, in that 
clump of alder bushes opposite the gate, wait- 
ing for the chance of sending you a message.” 

”Yes, I recollect the first one you sent. 
It was foolhardy, sending in that way.” 

”It wasn’t foolhardy, of course, sending 
back a direct answer, as you did. That 
youngster looked at me mighty sharp, the 
second time, I can tell you.” 

Philip’s scattered senses came to him, now, 
keener than ever, pe opened his eyes wide, 
and awoke to the fact that he must have faint- 
ed away, and had but just now come to. 
What he had heard was indeed startling, 
and it seemed, too, as if it had been whis- 


70 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


pered directly in his ear. Where were the 
speakers ? 

He did not dare to move, for fear he should 
touch them ; for the night, though the heav- 
ens were studded with stars, was dark, and 
besides, his foot might give such a twinge as 
would force him to groan or cr}^ out. So he 
braced himself up, and held his breath, lest 
he should lose a syllable. 

" Come now, no nonsense,” continued the 
first speaker; ”youVe under my thumb, you 
know. Gad ! and it’s precious lucky for me 
that I didn’t quite finish you up the other 
night, as I came so near doing.” 

" So it is,” was the answer, ” for you’d have 
swung on the gallows.” 

”Drat it, you fool, do you think I mean 
that? Bert Stoddard can take care of his own 
bacon, any time. It’s this windfall of yours 
I’m talking about. You always was a born 
goose, but I never thought you’d get to lay- 
ing golden eggs.” 

” Not a cent of the Wurtzel money will you 
ever see ; be assured of that,” was the sneer- 


AN UGLY SPRAIN. 


71 


ing response ; ” and have a care that you do 
not add too much to the ill-will I already bear 
you. You seem to forget that you are under 
my thumb, as well as — ” 

” Ho, ho ! ” interrupted the other ; ** which 
has the most at stake ; you or I ? Haven’t 
I been a vagabond and an outcast these ten 
years? A little more skulking and hiding 
wouldn’t amount to much to me. But to you, 
Mr. William Schnapps, valet, and gentleman 
to be, respectable and respected, it would be 
quite a different thing, and you know it. It’s 
no bush I’m beating. I have my bird here in 
my hand. It may flutter, but I’ve got fast 
hold.” 

A silence followed this of perhaps half a 
minute, and Philip’s heartbeat audibly, great- 
ly to his consternation. 

Then Mr. Schnapps said, impatiently, 
” Well, well, don’t pull the reins too hard. 
Wait till I’ve got the money. It will be time 
enough to settle matters when the man is 
dead.” 

" When will that be? ” 


72 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


" How do I know ? ” 

" Don’t try on any of your parsonish airs 
with me, Snake,” was the taunting remark. 
" I’d be willing to take any one’s bet against 
the old gent’s dying within a six months.” 

” Enough of this. I will not stay another 
second, and I will have nothing more to do 
with you. But for your own safety, you had 
best keep away from here.” 

Mr. Schnapps’ tone was desperate and 
angry in the extreme ; but his companion 
seemed to have cooled down to joviality. 

” Orr Revorr then, as the French Johnnies 
say,” he made answer. ”ril make myself 
scarce for a time. But hark ye ; I’ll not be 
so far away but that I can keep posted in this 
little trump game of yours, and manage to 
be on hand at the pickings.” 

Philip felt a stir close behind him ; the 
corner of a scarf or cloak brushed against 
his cheek, and stealthy steps were heard 
creeping away in the darkness. Mr. 
Schnapps and his comrade had been stand- 


AN UGLY SPRAIN. 


73 


ing on the opposite side of the very tree 
against which Philip was resting. 

"I must have been born under a lucky 
star,” thought our hero to himself; and so 
great was his elation, that his pain was for- 
gotten. He managed, by clinging to the 
friendly tree, to stand upright; and through 
the bushes he could see the upper windows 
of Mr. Wurtzel’s house brilliantly lighted. 

After a minute’s reckoning, he understood 
where he was clearly. He must have run 
in a half circle, for he was in what was 
called ” the thicket,” a dense growth of wood 
just back of Mr. Wurtzel’s. Limping and 
helping himself along by the low-hanging 
boughs and branches, he managed to work 
his way out into the road which led home. 
And by slow stages, stopping often to rest, 
he finally reached the little brown cottage. 

There was a light in the sitting-room. 
He could imagine how worried they all 
would be at his strange absence. He could 
not judge of the lateness of the hour, but 
certainly it was far past the usual family 


74 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


bed-time. He had gained the doorstep, and 
there he sank down in a heap. He could get 
no farther ; and just then the corner of the 
white fringed curtain was lifted, and his aunt’s 
anxious face pressed itself against the window 
pane, in a vain endeavor to see out into the 
night. At the same moment the front door 
opened, and uncle George appeared, shading 
with his hand the lamp. 

” I don’t know as I did,” he was saying, 
” but I thought I heard something.” 

" Uncle George ! ” called Philip, in a husky 
whisper ; and then faintly he heard Mr. Rug- 
gles’ astonished exclamation ; he felt himself 
lifted up in his arms ; he just saw his aunt, 
Seth, Mollie, and even little Pinny, gathered 
in a group around him ; and then, for the 
second time in his life, he fainted dead away 
again. 

He lay on the wide-seated sofa when he 
came to his senses. His aunt was sprinkling 
cold water on his face, and Pinny stood look- 
ing at him with a quivering lip. 


AN UGLY SPRAIN. 


75 


” Poor child ! ” said his aunt, as he opened 
his eyes, "lie still, don’t try to speak yet.” 

But Seth blurted out on the instant," Where 
under the sun have you been, Phil? You 
scared us almost to death. Say, what’s the 
matter ? ” 

Feeling his strength coming to him, Philip 
raised himself up on his elbow, and told his 
story in a few words. 

"I took a walk,” he said, "up into Mr. 
Wurtzel’s woods, and I turned my foot under 
me, and when I tried to step I fainted away. 
And then it was dark, and I thought I should 
have to stay there all night ; but I hobbled 
home after a fashion ; ” and he looked around 
with a smile, for, in spite of the throbbing in 
his foot, he felt an inward satisfaction which 
he could not help thus betraying. 

"Well, if you ain’t game!” began Seth, 
wonderingly. 

" Hush I ” said his mother, who disliked 
very much to have him talk any kind of 
slang, especially before his sisters. 

Uncle George took occasion here to re- 


. 7 ^ 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


mark that Philip had better be put to bed. 
”And,” he added, ”the next best thing will 
be for us all to follow suit.” 

So Philip was carried up stairs like a baby, 
and submitted to having his ankle rubbed 
with arnica, though he had to lock his 
teeth together hard, it hurt so ; after which 
he was tucked up between the sheets, and 
left with Seth, his bed-fellow. 

This last had been enjoined not to talk, 
but to let Philip go right to sleep ; and he 
obeyed directions in a model manner, for no 
sooner had his own head touched the pillow, 
than he went right off to sleep himself. 

As for Philip, he tossed, and turned, and 
passed a wakeful, painful night ; and in the 
morning his face was white and haggard, 
and his ankle was fiery red, and badly 
swollen. 

Seth sympathized with him. " How mean ! ” 
exclaimed he; ” to-day, too, when we were 
going fishing ! And I’ve gone and spent ten 
cents for fishing tackle, and almost broke my 
back last night, digging for worms.” 


AN UGLY SPRAIN. 


77 


Seth’s mother looked serious at sight of the 
inflamed member. ”We must have the doc- 
tor at once,” she said. " What will your 
father say ? I really dread to send him word. 
I am afraid he will never trust you with us 
again.” 

” Don’t tell him ; he will take me home.” 
Philip spoke eagerly. He felt that it was a 
very critical time for him to leave Thorne- 
wood — so near, as he was, to the two thou- 
sand dollars reward. 

"Well, we will see what the doctor says,” 
answered his aunt ; and she despatched Seth 
after the family physician. 

Seth had hardly disappeared, when a heavy 
tread sounded along the piazza ; a ponderous 
pair of knuckles, disdaining the use of the 
bell, rapped upon the outer door ; and, with a 
full conviction of his fate, Philip sank back, 
saying, "It’s father. Now there’ll be a fuss. 
I shall have to go home. There’s no getting 
over it.” 

Not a very proper speech for a little boy 
to make with respect to his over-fond father ; 


78 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


but the pain he was at that moment un- 
dergoing was enough to make any one 
fretful ; and then, just remember what he 
had at stake. 

Of course the person at the door 7i/as Phil- 
ip’s father. No one else could have taken 
such long strides on the piazza, or been the 
owner of such a pair of knuckles. When 
he saw Phillip’s ankle, he almost went beside 
himself. He actually blubbered like an 
overgrown school-boy, and rubbed those 
great knuckles of his into his eyes, till he 
looked as though he had been peeling onions 
or grating horse radish. 

”Oh-h-h ! hurts, does it ! ” asked jolly old 
Dr. Pulsifer, handling Philip’s ankle as 
tenderly as a woman, although he appeared 
reckless enough about it ; while Philip winced, 
and seemed on the point of fainting. 

"You’ll double your other foot under you, 
perhaps, it’s such fun. Well, well,” — for 
Philip cried out suddenly, as he pressed a 
little harder, — " I want you to see how nice it 
is.” With this he laid the swollen foot on 


AN UGLY SPRAIN. 


79 


the pillow again. Mr. Sands looked at him 
with "his throat in his mouth,” as he said 
afterwards. 

Dr. Pulsifer rubbed his hands blandly to- 
gether, and said, with a clearing of his throat 
that sounded like a chuckle, " It’s an ugly 
sprain — that’s all. He’ll be laid up a month ; 
perhaps two or three. Nothing serious.” 

Philip groaned. Everybody thought it on 
account of his foot ; and his father said, "Phil, 
my boy,” and stroked his hair into his eyes. 

Poor Mr. Sands ! He did not take the mat- 
ter half so calmly as Phil. He blamed him- 
self, and everybody, and everything for the 
accident. 

" Why didn’t I come, as I meant to, a week 
ago ? ” he asked, over and over again. ” Just 
because Phil said 'no’ in his letter, I was 
idiot enough to leave him till he got his neck 
broke, or, the next thing to it, his shin. I 
declare, it would be a relief if I could be 
hung or shot. I deserve to be.” 

After incredible exertions to procure a 
springy carriage, and a horse too gentle to 


8o 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


even whisk his tail when the flies bit, the 
sorrowing father took his boy home imbed- 
ded in several layers of pillows. It was as 
much as Mrs. Ruggles could do to prevent 
his taking a whole feather-bed beside. 


PHILIPS LEVEES, 


8l 


CHAPTER VI 


PHILIPS LEVEES, 



‘HE news spread like wildfire through 


the neighborhood. "Phil Sands’ leg is 
broke,” said one small boy to another ; and 
all the small boys together looked blank and 
stood aghast. For Phil was a hero in their 
eyes, and they had thought him exempt " from 
every ill that flesh is heir to.” They looked 
upon hini as their " chief head centre,” round 
which the moon and stars revolved. Indeed, 
one of them had nicknamed him King Philip, 
and all considered themselves his subjects. 

So you can imagine the commotion. It 
was like that of an ant-hill, whose outer walls 
have been suddenly crushed in, without warn- 
ing, by the careless fling of a passing heel. 
And, as the houseless animals pour out from 
every crack and crevice, and swarm, bewil- 


6 


82 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


dered, so Philip’s sworn friends and support- 
ers swarmed from every quarter, and dis- 
cussed the thing in a helpless and dumb- 
founded manner. 

It will be inferred, from this full mustering 
of forces, that most of Philip’s neighborhood 
friends were passing their vacation at home. 
Instead of revelling in green meadows, or 
running races with the tides upon the breezy 
sea-shores, their fates condemned them to hot 
brick sidewalks, and, in some cases, blister- 
ing attics. As for Barney O’Roach, who 
lived down Shark’s Alley, he considered va- 
cations as precious humbugs. They meant 
nothing to him but shavings. That is, at 
such times, he hawked shavings through the 
streets, and sold them at a penny a basket, 
eking out thus his mother’s scanty pittance. 

Barney was the only boy ” not respecta- 
ble ’’that was numbered among Philip’s ac- 
quaintances. Not that there was anything 
especially bad about him, either. Only he 
was always out at elbows, generally bare- 
footed, and a tangled mat of short curls 


Philip’s levees. 


83 


shaded his Irish blue eyes from the sun — 
an office which the brimless state of his hat 
was powerless to perform. Shark’s Alley 
was a rather disreputable place to live in, 
too ; but what was Mrs. O’Roach to do with 
a family of four children, besides Barney? 
She was a war-widow, to be sure, and re- 
ceived state aid ; but that, bless you, can’t 
support a brown stone front. Why, if you 
will believe me, it did not even find the 
little O’Roaches in butter. They ate their 
bread, only on great occasions, smeared 
over with treacle or molasses. When none 
of the babies (I don’t count Barney in this 
class ; he was near his tenth year) were 
down with teething, or mumps, or measles, 
Mrs. O’Roach occasionally scrubbed out, or 
did thankfully any other odd job that came 
in her way. 

Barney, returning from a successful shav- 
ing foray, five baskets sold, money jin- 
gling in his pocket, came suddenly upon a 
crowd of juveniles, gravely discussing the 
late news. 


84 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


"The idea,” said one, "of Phil’s ever put- 
ting his foot into anything ! ” 

" It’s broke right off at the knuckle joint,” 
drawled Johnnie Slack, with a face longer 
than his arm ; and that was saying a good 
deal, for he looked like a windmill. 

" I saw him when his father took him out 
of the hack,” put in a third. " He was 
white as anything, and his leg was all 
bundled up. It was as big round as that.’^ 
With the last word he spread out his two 
hands till they were half a yard apart. 

By thus doing, he hit one boy’s nose-, 
and got his own fingers wedged between 
another’s teeth. The three set up a howl, 
and all the rest, thinking of their fallen chief, 
echoed it. 

"What’s that ye’re saying?” cried Bar- 
ney, elbowing his way with vigor, bas- 
ket and all, into the centre of the group. 
"What’s that about Phil Sands?” 

Then, the news being retailed out to him, 
Barney heaved a sigh, and gazed mourn- 
fully into his empty shavings basket. 


Philip’s -levees. 


8s 


"He’ll niver bate us at lape frog agin,” 
said he, as if that were a thing very hard 
to bear. 

Now, ragamuffin though he was, Barney 
was possessed of considerable influence ; and 
when, feeling in his pocket, he proposed 
clubbing together and buying Philip " some- 
thin’ or other,” everybody seconded the mo- 
tion. 

Pocket money was not plenty with these 
boys, sons of mechanics and small trades- 
men. The money their parents earned 
came too hard to be given to them to spend 
on trifles. 

Barney’s contribution of three cents was 
the largest. There were four bo3^s that 
gave two cents, and the rest put in one ; 
and Johnny Slack, who had nothing, was 
brought up from the depths of "low de- 
spair” by an obliging soul, who lent him 
his last remaining mite. 

Barney collected the supplies in his brim- 
less hat, which, being of ancient make, part- 
ed company under its valuable freight, and 


.86 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


let its treasures through upon the ground. 
However, this mishap was soon remedied ; 
and as to the damage done his hat, Bar- 
ney gave it never a thought. 

The joint stock thus collected amounted 
to twenty cents. 

"What shall we get?” asked Barney. 

"Something to eat,” answered Johnny 
Slack. 

"Of course,” exclaimed everybody else. 

Barney pulled his short curls — they were 
just the color of shavings — farther down 
over his eyes. "Nothin’s more nourishin’ 
nor mutton pie,” said he at length, "’spe- 
cially for the sick.” 

Nobody contradicted him. 

" Hot,” he added. 

"Yes, hot,” was the verdict. 

This was about three o’clock in the after- 
noon, the day after Philip’s return. And 
how Philip did laugh, when, a half hour 
later, the delegation rushed in upon him, 
headed by Barney, with the hot mutton 
pie, which he carried in front of him on 


Philip’s levees. 


87 


a little pine board, exactly, as Philip said, 
the chaplain of a lodge of Free Masons 
carries the Bible on a velvet cushion in 
procession. 

His mother was glad to see his spirits 
rise, though the way the boys scuffled over 
the carpet set ‘her teeth on edge. She 
frowned a little, too, at sight of Barney. 
She had never looked with favor upon his 
intimacy with Philip. 

But Philip grew radiant. He shook oflT 
the dumps in which he had been sunk till 
now, and rattled away, first with this one 
and then with that, till you looked to see 
him collapse for want of breath. 

And the boys were delighted. They 
clustered about him, as he sat enthroned 
among his pillows, and held an uproarious 
jubilee. They told him how much they 
had missed him. 

”An’ what have ye been doin’ all this 
long two weeks?” asked Barney. 

" Shooting bears and hunting rattlesnakes,” 
answered Philip, gayly ; but then the disap- 


88 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


pointment of the scheme he had really un- 
dertaken came like a wave over him, and 
his mother, who was watching him sharpl}^ 
told the boys they had staid long enough ; 
and as they stood rather in awe of her short, 
pie-crust ways, they obeyed the gentle hint, 
and scuffled away with many noisy "good 
byes,” and promises to come again. 

This was the first of " Philip’s Levees ; ” 
so his sister Sue called them. 

"Why,” added she, with a smile, "if 
Phil were President of the United States, 
he couldn’t be grander. I shall have to 
pinch myself to be sure that I am not really 
the President’s sister, and living in the White 
House.” 

And while his comrades were with him, 
Philip was the same light-hearted, fun-lov- 
ing boy as ever ; but during the hours that 
he sat alone, his father absent, and his 
mother and Sue at work somewhere else 
about the house, he turned over and over 
in his mind the memorable conversation he 
had so strangely been made a listener to, 


Philip’s levees. 89 

out there in the Wurtzel woods. It would 
have been a great step for him, had it not 
been for that provoking misstep just pre- 
vious. He could recall vividly every word 
that had been said, and the two names 
Snake Larkin and Bart Stoddard seemed 
always written, before his eyes, in indelible 
characters. 

The first, of course, he knew for Mr. 
Schnapps, and the latter he shrewdly 
guessed to be the man with the squint in 
his left eye. He took himself for the 
youngster spoken of, as carrying the first 
message to and fro ; and the clump of al- 
der bushes at the gate was well known 
to him. The fact of the man’s having 
hidden there explained his popping out so 
suddenly upon his view. You will remem- 
ber that, at the time, Philip had wondered 
where he had sprung from. 

Now, the best thing for our young detec- 
tive to do was to give over the matter into 
older and wiser hands : but being one who 
had always mastered everybody and every- 


90 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


thing from his babyhood up, King Philip, 
as the boys called him, could not bring him- 
self to such an humiliating thing. 

So the days and the levees went on, and 
Barney was as constant an attendant as any- 
one, notwithstanding the brisk plying of his 
trade, which of course took up much of his 
time. One afternoon, as half a dozen boys, 
Barney among them, were in the sitting-room 
with Philip, the door opened, and in came 
aunt Rhody, followed by Mr. Schnapps. 

" Poor dear ! ” cried aunt Rhody, rushing 
forward to hug Philip. ” I had a chance to 
ride in with Mr. Schnapps in the carriage, 
and I was glad enough of it, for I wanted 
to see you, and know how you were getting 
along.” 

Philip was surprised beyond measure at 
the sight of Mr. Schnapps. ” There’s some 
reason for his coming,” he thought. The 
idea flashed at once across him,< and the 
minute he was smothered in aunt Rhody’s 
embrace gave him just time enough to calm 


Philip’s levees. 


91 


down the flutter which the sudden event had 
caused him. 

So, when Mr. Schnapps came up to him 
blandly, and asked him how he did, and 
expressed his sorrow at his accident, Philip 
was able to answer him in neither too few 
nor too many words, and with exactly the 
right tone. 

"We only knew of it yesterday,” ex- 
claimed aunt Rhody, "and it happened 
right on our place, too. J;^t in that little 
piece of woods back of the house — wasn’t it?’> 

"Yes,” answered Philip, beginning to see 
light. 

"Ahem!” said Mr. Schnapps, softly, as 
though he considered the whole thing a 
bore, but was trying to be polite. " It was 
four or five nights ago — wasn’t it?” 

"Yes, sir, it was,” replied Philip, inno- 
cently. 

Mr. Schnapps threw him a sharp glance 
here, which he bore admirably. 

" Why,” exclaimed aunt Rhody, " brother 


92 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


George said it was Monday night, and here 
it’s Friday. Just four nights ago.” 

"Well, the time it happened don’t amount 
to much — does it?” said Philip, carelessly. 
He knew that Mr. Schnapps was watching 
him, and he saw him draw a breath of re- 
lief at his answer. 

'' That’s true,” commented aunt Rhody ; 
*^it isn’t the time ; it’s the sprain. That’s the 
principal thing, you think.” 

Then she busied herself in beating up his 
pillows, and settling his foot more comfor- 
tably, and rearranging the bandages, while 
she asked innumerable questions, all in one 
breath, about what the doctor said of his 
ankle, how soon he expected to be about 
on it, if it pained him much, if he was rest- 
less nights, if his appetite was good, and 
so on. 

Mr. Schnapps sat listening with a kindly 
smile. "Dull care, begone,” was the motto 
expressed on his face, as he contemplated 
an uncouth, reddish china dog, that orna- 
mented the mantel-piece. 


Philip’s levees. 


93 


Finally, as aunt Rhody paused, he rose 
and buttoned his coat, saying, ”I think I 
will leave you now. Miss Ruggles. How 
long a time do you allow me for business ? ” 

” Half an hour at the very farthest,” was 
the answer, for Mr. Schnapps was still aunt 
Rhody’s patient, though the next day she 
was to abandon her office of nurse, and re- 
turn to her brother’s. 

Mr. Schnapps rode away in the carriage, 
with a bow out the window to aunt Rhody. 

" Such a nice young man as he is I ” said 
she, in her old-fashioned way. ” I declare, 
I love him almost as much as if he were 
my own son. And such interest as he took 
in you, Philip ! so sympathizing ! and he 
insisted on coming to see you, although he 
is weak himself still, and has important 
business to attend to, quite at the other 
part of the city.” 

Just then his mother came in, and she 
and aunt Rhody fell to talking over their 
own affairs. All the boys had left except 
Barney, and he had kept so still that 


94 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


Philip had forgotten he had not gone, until 
he nudged him and said, "I’ve seen that man 
that came in the carriage before. He was 
down our alley one night, and I remember 
him.” 

" Philip Augustus,” spoke up his mother, 
sharply, " don’t you open your mouth again 
to-day. You’ve talked enough for one 
spell.” Her eye fell upon Barney, and he, 
clutching up his hat like a vice, started 
off as if he had been shot. 


BARNEY o’rOACH’S LIFT. 


95 


CHAPTER VII. 

BARNEY o’rOACH’s LIFT. 

I T was the next day. Philip was at the 
sitting-room window, on the lookout for 
Barney. He was very anxious to see him 
with regard to Mr. Schnapps. 

” Shark’s Alley,” soliloquized Philip. ”I 
wonder who Mr. Schnapps knows down 
there. It’s a first-rate place for a den of 
thieves. I’ve heard father say that many 
a time. Perhaps he will go there again, 
now he has got well. I’ll set Barney on 
the watch. How I do wish he’d come 
along ! ” 

But fortune did not smile on Philip’s 
wishes for this once. Barney O’Roach did 
not pass along that morning, as was his 
wont. And it was in vain that Philip wait- 
ed to see the shock-head and dilapidated 


96 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


basket of the young shavings merchant turn 
the street corner. The fact was, that while 
his crippled friend was worrying himself 
almost into a fever over his non-appearance, 
Barney was at home, dandling the young- 
est baby in his arms, riding the two-year- 
old on his foot "to Banbury Cross, to see 
an old lady on a white horse,” nodding ap- 
provingly at little Joe, who was playing 
horse, having harnessed himself to a paste- 
board box, that had one end torn down for 
a tail board, and throwing out between 
whiles a word of caution to Mikey, the old- 
est of the four, who was cooking porridge 
over the fire. 

The widow O’Roach had a golden chance 
to go scrubbing that day, and Barney, in 
consequence, had charge of "the childers” — 
a task which he performed in an admirable 
manner, having a sleight-of-hand way about 
it that was truly charming. 

All day long he kept the babies in a 
chuckle, and then they all ate their sup- 
per as merry as crickets, and were put to 


BARNEY o’rOACH’s LIFT. 


97 


bed ; and when Mrs. O’Roach came drag- 
ging home with her pail and scrubbing- 
brush, and a "tearin’ ache in her head, an’ 
in the small of her back,” as she told Bar- 
ney, the children were asleep, the hearth 
tidied up, ^nd the little black tea-pot chir- 
ruping and bouncing up its lid at her, as 
much as to say, ” Come here, honey, an’ 
take a dhrop o’ comfort. Squaze me dry. 
I’m ready an’ waitin’.” 

The widow’s face smoothed itself out, and 
she accepted the tea-pot’s polite invitation 
to take a sip, after which she called Barney 
her ”darlint boy.” 

"Whist, mother,” exclaimed he, "don’t 
flatther me. It’s little I do for ye now ; but 
whin somebody gives me a lift, thin ye shall 
live in the top of the style, an’ niver a thing 
to do but to follow the fashions.” 

. His mother sighed. "Whist yesilf, lad,” 
she said ; " you’re like as two pays to yer 
poor father. Shure, he was always a spak- 
ing of a lift jist so. An’ thrue enough, at 
the battle of Bull Run, a big cannon ball 

7 


98 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


give him a lift, an’ splintered him into twin- 
ty paces. Pace to his sowl indade.” 

Barney, though he always listened rev- 
erently to this speech, was so used to it, 
and to the tear that the widow always wiped 
away at its end, that it failed to dampen his 
enthusiasm. 

It did not now ; and in the morning when 
he sallied forth to lay in his stock of trade, 
his hopes were as high as ever; for he 
turned back to say to his mother, who was 
groaning with the cramps caught, the day 
before, from going down on her knees on 
the wet floor. " Cheer up a bit. Who 
knows but whin I come back I’ll bring me 
fortune in my hand.” 

He was so taken up with this ’idea, that 
he forgot, when he came in sight of Mr. 
Sands’ house, to look for Philip at the sit- 
ting-room window. Philip, however, was 
at his post ; and at sight of Barney, up flew 
the window sash, and. his impatient voice 
cried out, — 

"Come here, Barney ! Where were you 


BARNEY O^ROACH’s LIFT. 


99 


yesterday ? I thought you never were com- 
ing.” 

”An’ did you want me?” returned Bar- 
ney, who was now within a few rods of 
the window. 

"Come here,” reiterated Philip ; "come 
close. Don’t talk loud.” 

Wonder was strongly depicted on Bar- 
ney’s round face, as he obeyed Philip’s sev- 
eral commands. The sitting-room window 
was low enough for him to rest his elbows 
on the sill. And in this position, with his 
head and shoulders thrust forward, almost 
at right angles with his body, and his bas- 
ket carelessly thrown upon the sidewalk, 
he awaited further remarks. 

"Are you sure that was the same man? ” 
began Philip, with vehemence. 

"What same man?” inquired Barney, 
entirely adrift as to his friend’s meaning. 

"The same man you saw down your al- 
ley,” said Philip. 

" Down my alley,” repeated Barney. 
"Shure, how is anybody to tell what you 


lOO 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


mane? Why can’t ye talk straight, an’ be 
done botherin ’ ? ” 

''How stupid — I am!” finished Philip, 
halting in the middle of his sentence, for 
the ending of it was not what he had in- 
tended. 

It was Barney he was going to call stu- 
pid ; but with the words on his tongue, he 
suddenly bethought himself that he was the 
more stupid of the two. 

"Well, look here,” he added: "you re- 
member — don’t you ? — the day before yes- 
terday, when my aunt came?” 

Barney nodded. 

"And you remember, too, Mr. Schnapps, 
who came with her?” 

"Now I hev it,” exclaimed Barney, a 
whole skylight of intelligence let into his 
face. "That’s the same man. It’s him ye 
mane ? ” 

"Yes,” answered Philip, "and you said 
you had seen him before down your alley.” 

"An’ I had.” 

"When?” 


BARNEY o’rOACH’s LIFT. 


lOI 


" If ye’ll promise not to tell,” said Barney, 
hesitating a little. 

”ril promise anything,” exclaimed Phil- 
ip, in a fidget. 

Barney proceeded. ” Ye see it was whin 
I took sick in the cowld weather. I wasn’t 
very bad at fust, only hot and feverish like, 
an’ weak on me legs as dish-wather; an’ 
mother had to be up and down to me, and 
what with the care of the others, she got 
into a bad .way herself.” 

"Never mind all that,” broke in Philip. 
" Can’t you skip a little somewhere ? ” 

"Shure I can, an’ ye’ll only tell me 
where,” answered his obliging friend. 

Philip bit his lip. "O, well,” said he, 
"go straight on, but be as quick as you 
can.” 

So Barney took up again the thread of 
his discourse. " Me mother worrited so that 
she couldn’t slape nights. An’ ivery time 
I woke up, which was a dale too often, I 
could hear her in the next room, a sighin’ 
or movin’ unasy like, on her bed. The 


102 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


wather was always ready to me hand, an’ 
after takin’ a sup, I’d fall off again. But 
one night I woke up, an’ the pitcher was 
dhry. ' Mother,’ I called in a whisper ; but 
she didn’t answer. Then I caught the 
sound of a long, deep breath, and then 
another an’ another. The poor soul was 
aslape for once. The roots of me tongue 
seemed biirnin’ up, but I wouldn’t have 
waked her if the whole of me had been all 
afire. I got up an’ stole into the next room ; 
an’ still luck was against me. There was 
niver a dhrop in the bucket. So, throwin’ 
me blanket over me back, I opened the door 
soft an’ aisy, and made me way down the 
stairs with the pitcher in me hand. It’s to 
the pump at the end of the alley that we 
go for water. An’ jist as I was creepin’ 
outside, the two passed by.” 

”What two?” asked Philip, who had lis- 
tened to what had gone before with consid- 
erable patience. 

"The girl they call Ary an’ that same 
man ye were asking about.” 


BARNEY o’rOACH’S LIFT. 


103 


" Mr. Schnapps ! ” exclaimed Philip. 

" If that’s his name. The girl called him 
father.” 

" Ah ! ” Philip felt he had struck a new 
mine. ” Do you know the girl? Does she 
live in your alley ? Did you hear what they 
said?” 

Barney tipped his head to one side, and 
looked at Philip curiously. 

"What’s up wid ye, Phil Sands?” said 
he. "Ye’re drivin’- at some divarsion. I 
can tell it by the color av yer eye.” 

"Don’t trouble yourself about me,” was 
the answer ; and then, coaxingly, " Do please 
get on to the end of your story. Perhaps 
I’ll have something to tell you then.” He 
had nearly made up his mind to enlist Bar- 
ney in his service, as assistant detective. 

"I can’t make ye out at all, at all. Ye’re 
so crazy like, an’ jumpin’ from one thing to 
another. Fust it’s ' go on,’ an’ then it’s ' hold 
up,’ an’ then it’s a hape of questions. An’ 
now what is it ye’ll have next?” 

"What did Mr. Schnapps say?” 


104 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


” I didn’t hear him say anything. It was 
the girl that was talkin’. I dodged behind 
the door when I heard ’em cornin’. So 
they didn’t see me.” 

"Well, what did the girl say?” 

"Ary was sayin’, ' O, father, do take 
me away from here. Don’t lave me any 
longer. Let me go with you ; ’ an’ she was 
holdin’ on to him with her two hands. 
He seemed to be thryin’ to make her go 
back ; but she went with him to the end 
of the alley, and thin they stood talkin’, 
an’ I a-shiverin’ outside and burnin’ with- 
in, not darin’ to go to the pump for fear 
they’d think me a ghost ; an’ in a few min- 
utes Ary came flyin’ past, an’ I heard her 
front door shuttin’, an’ thin I ventured out 
for the wather. Such a dhrink as I took — ” 

"So that’s all you heard? That’s the 
only time you ever saw Mr. Schnapps? I 
shouldn’t think you would have remembered 
him.” 

"Hoot! Why not? Barney O’Roach niv- 
er yet forgot a face. Let him clap his eyes 


BARNEY o’rOACH’s LIFT. 105 

on it once, and thin he kapes it in his fore- 
piece,” tapping his forehead, "iver after.” 

This was no vain boast. Barney had in- 
deed a wonderful memory. Philip was well 
aware of it, too ; for often, just for the fun 
of the thing, he would read off some dong, 
dry newspaper report to Barney, who would 
repeat it after him, word for \vord, without 
a mistake or a pause. 

"’Yes,” said Philip to himself, thinking 
for the first time of this new point in Bar- 
ney’s favor, "yes, he’ll be just the man for 
me. 

"Barney,” — he spoke out loud now, — 
" how would you like to b^ put in a way to 
make more money than ever you saw to- 
gether in all your life before?” 

" How would I like it ! ” exclaimed Bar- 
ney, bearing hi^ whole weight on his el- 
bows and kicking his heels together clear 
of the ground. "Jist lave me the chance — 
that’s all.” 

" You guessed the truth,” returned Philip, 
"when you said, a little while ago, that I 


io6 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


was driving at something. I won’t tell you 
just what it is ; that is, not now ; but if you’ll 
do just what I tell you, and not ask any 
questions, some time you’ll know the whole, 
and then you’ll get your share of the — ” 
He almost said ” reward,” but not quite. 

"The what?” asked Barney, quickly, not 
giving him time to substitute another word. 

"The money.” 

Barney’s eyes sparkled brilliantly. "Ah, 
Phil, me fine lad,” he said wheedlingly, 
" couldn’t ye give me a small taste of how 
much it will be?” 

"Two or three hundred dollars; perhaps 
twice that. According to how much you 
are worth to me,” returned Philip, with im- 
portance. 

Barney clasped his hands in speechless 
amaze and delight. " It’s the lift,” he 
thought. " I knew it would come.” 


ARY. 


107 


CHAPTER VIIL 

ARY. 

B ARNEY’S ecstasy of delight was rather 
provoking, than, otherwise, to Philip; 
for while it lasted he might as well have 
tried to talk to a deaf and dumb man. It 
was evident that Barney heard not a single 
word that he said. 

Finally, Philip, exasperated, grasped him 
by the shoulder, crying, ” Do come to your 
senses, Barney, and listen to me.” 

But Barney shook himself free. "Arrah, 
Phil, be aisy,” he murmured; ”it’s the lift 
IVe dhramed about, — only onst in a life- 
time.” His voice sounded as if he were very 
far up in the clouds. 

Philip got quite wrathy. "You’re not 
worth a pin,” he exclaimed. "I’m sorry I 
told you a thing. But I shall discharge 


io8 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


you. And you may stand there mooning 
and counting your chickens that will never 
hatch, as long as you’ve a mind to.” 

He was about slamming down the win- 
dow in high dudgeon, but Barney quickly 
interposed his own broad stub of a fist, and 
prevented him. 

"Ye’ll niver be so cmel,” said he; "ye’ll 
niver give me a fortin’ and thin take it back 
agin like that ! ” 

"Well,” returned Philip, grou?tily, "what 
good are you to me if you won’t attend to 
business ? ” 

"Thry me. Here I am, all ready an’ 
waitin’. An’ if it’s to Nova Scotia or the 
Bay of Fundy ye want me to go, jist say 
the word. There’s me hand on it.” 

"Stuff!” Philip smiled in spite of him- 
self. " If you’d only listen, it would be all 
right. Of course there’s nothing of that 
sort to do.” 

On Barney’s devoutly protesting that he 
would listen him " out of house and home,” 
Philip rehearsed his commands. 


ARY. 


109 

”A11 I want of you,” said he, ”any way, 
at present, is to keep watch for Mr. 
Schnapps. Of course, if his daughter lives 
in your alley, he’ll be likely to come there 
often. And the next time you see her — ” 

''Ary?” questioned Barney, interrupting. 

" Yes ; you call out to her suddenly, ' Ary 
Schnapps ! ’ ” 

"What for?” 

"To see if that’s her name.” 

" Av course it is.” 

" Perhaps, and perhaps not,” said Philip, 
wisely ; " any way, you try it, and tell me 
just how she takes it,” 

" That’s aiser nor shmoke. Go on ; what 
next? ” 

" Nothing just yet.” 

" What ! ” in strong astonishment. " An’ 
will that aim me hundreds of dollars? It’s 
a riddle to me through ah’ through. I’m 
like a blind man lookin’ into a stone wall.” 

" That’s just what I want you to be like,” 
answered Philip, cheerfully, his good tem- 
per entirely restored ; " and you mustn’t ask 


no 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


any questions, either. And be sure you 
don’t get talking about this to anybody, 
and keep mum, or — ” 

” I’ll kick over the bucket, eh? All right. 
I’ll kape to my side of the fence if you will 
to yours. Mind you howld tight to your 
saycret.” 

"Your secret? ” repeated Philip. "I didn’t 
know you had one.” 

"Talk to me about moonin’. You better 
look to home. Didn’t I tell you in the fust 
place that I wanted it kept saycret with re- 
gard to me goin’ out to the pump in the mid- 
dle of the night.” 

"O ! ” ejaculated Philip, as though he had 
just recalled it to his remembrance ; " but 
why? What secret is there in that?” 

"Ye see I caught could, an’ in the mornin’ 
I woke wid the lung fever, worst kind, an’ 
the doctor had to be sint for, an’ there was 
the bill to pay. I wished many a time that 
I had let mesilf burn up with thirst, before 
I had laid such a burden on me mother’s 
back. She an’ the rest of the childers went 


ARY. 


Ill 


without sugar an’ tay, an’ butter and mate, 
till that bill was paid. It was a sore thing 
for me to be atin’ mutton broth and bafe- 
steak, — for so the doctor ordered, — wid the 
rest a-hungered before me, an’ to think it 
was me own carelessness that brought it 
about. So I kept the cause of the faver a 
saycret. An’ now it’s a dale of comfort to 
me to find mesilf next door to a fortin’. I 
can make it all up now, tin times over.” 

” If you’re only careful and sharp. It all 
depends upon that.” 

” I’ll not desart me post, mornin’, noon, 
nor night, an’ I’ll call out ' Ary Schnapps ’ 
as soon as I lay me eye on her. An’ thin 
I’ll report mesilf to headquarters.” 

Philip nodded approval. 

" Shavins’,” continued Barney, ” is a mane 
trade. I’m glad to cut it intirely ; ” and he 
gave his basket a contemptuous kick, which 
made another hole in its well-riddled sides, 
and then, clapping it on his head helmet- 
fashion, he made his adieus to Philip, and 
went off towards home, whistling in a rollick- 
ing manner, ”The Widow Malone, Ohone !” 


II2 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


In a few minutes Barney reached the en- 
trance to Shark’s Alley, and came face to 
face with a girl who was just passing out. 

”The top o’ the mornin’ to ye, Miss Ary 
Schnapps,” exclaimed Barney. 

The girl looked at him in a cool, collect- 
ed way, smiled slightly, and passed by 
without a word. 

Barney stood still and watched her up the 
street. ” She’s a mighty quare customer to 
dale with,” he remarked to himself, with a 
puzzled face ; then, bethinking he was under 
orders, he took to his heels, and appeared 
to Phil, who still sat by his window, in a 
breathless condition. 

Philip’s head popped out again with an 
inquiring look. 

" I’ve seen her,” panted Barney. ” I’ve 
said it to her.” 

” What, so soon ! How did she take it?” 

She niver opened her head, but took it 
as though what she heard was nothin’, and 
nobody’d said it.” 

"Didn’t say a. word, eh?” responded Phil- 
ip, slowly. "Well, how did she look?” 


” Out of her two eyes,” began Barney, fa- 
cetiously ; but observing that Philip assumed 
a displeased air at this untimely joke, he 
hastened to add, ” an’ you’d think she niver 
saw anything, nor wanted to ; but it’s the 
corner of her eye, an’ ye mind, that takes in 
ivery bit that’s happenin’. Shure, Ary’s a sly 
one, Phil. But ain’t she handsome, wid her 
yaller hair and black eyes? My ! ain’t she?” 

” Hush ! don’t talk so loud ; and stand up 
straight. You’re blocking up the sidewalk, 
so that nobody can pass.” 

Barney’s elbows were firmly planted upon 
the window-sill, while his feet were braced 
against the curb-stone. Barney was uncon- 
scious that this elegant position was main- 
tained at the expense of the travelling public. 

Philip, however, was not ; but as there 
had been but two persons along, a coarse, 
fat woman with a market basket, and a com- 
mon sort of a man, with a roll in his gait, 
as though he were a sailor just landed, he 
had not thought it worth his while to speak 
about it. 


8 


1 14 THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 

But now the case was different. There 
was a young girl approaching, who, bor- 
rowing nothing from dress, — her costume 
being common and plain in the extreme, — 
was strikingly elegant and lady-like. It was 
hard to guess at her age at sight, for her 
self-possession, and a sort of womanly 
look about her, made her appear several 
years older than she really was. 

She awoke Philip’s gallantry, as we have 
seen, and Barney restored his nether limbs to 
a perpendicular, and half turned his head to 
see what person or persons had been impeded 
in their progress by his heedless attitude. 

The girl made no acknowledgment of 
Philip’s courtesy, but rather quickened her 
pace. Barney started violently. 

" It’s Ary ! ” said he. 

” Hush ! she will hear you,” returned 
Philip, more cautiously. 

"Did she see me, do ye think?” 

"She appeared not; but I don’t know. 
Come to remember, she did seem to look 
over here sideways, too, for all she kept 
her head so straight.” 


ARY. 


II5 

” Well, if she didn’t hear me it’s all right 
— ain’t it ? ” 

”I’m not so sure of that,” said Philip, 
slowly. " I don’t dare to risk it. She 
looks sharp.” 

” As cuttin’ as a razor.” 

Well, I shall lay back on my oars and 
wait a while. I shan’t give you any more 
orders just at present. Only you can watch 
her, and find out, if you can, if she suspects 
anything.” 

This was Philip’s final conclusion. It was 
vexatious to stop short, just when he had 
thought to run the thing into the ground, 
just when he had been on the point of 
trying his grand reserve stroke. For he 
had hardly thought that Ary’s name was 
Schnapps. He had reasoned about it in 
this wise. If Mr. Wurtzel’s valet was her 
father, her name — that is, her real name — 
would be Larkin, since that was the name 
the valet had been called that well-remem- 
bered night in the Wurtzel woods. And 
now, though trembling with eagerness, this 
last trap he dared not set, for fear the girl 


Il6 THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 

might suspect something. " O, dear,” Philip 
sighed to himself, ” I wish I had told Barney 
to call her Ary Larkin, in the first place.” 

Meanwhile, Ary Larkin, or, if that wasn’t 
her name, Ary anything else, who was as 
great a mystery to the Shark Alleyites as 
Egyptian Sphinxes to the wise men of the 
world, and whom no one knew but by the 
one short, odd name of Ary, had reached 
home, and, going immediately to her attic 
room, had seated herself in a low chair by 
the back window. She sat crouched down 
all in a heap, with both elbows on her knees, 
and her chin held in her two hands, staring 
hard, through the little squeezed-up panes 
of glass before her, upon the house-tops and 
chimney-pots, which was all the view her 
high lookout commanded. 

As Barney had said, her hair was yellow, 
and her eyes were black ; and now her 
cheeks were fiushed to a rose pink. She 
was very handsome. But her dark eyes, 
with their thick, black eyebrows, were in 
strange contrast with her light hair. And 
her babyish mouth, with its short upper lip, 


ARY. 


II7 

was not in keeping at all with her square 
chin, and her firm, broad forehead, contract- 
ed and wrinkled now with deep thought. 

The furniture of the room, which was 
large, with a sloping ceiling, was neat and 
comfortable. Nothing matched, however. 
It would seem as though it had been hur- 
riedl}^ chosen,, at a moment’s, notice, out of 
some second-hand, odds-and-ends store, 
where everything in the furnishing line 
can be bought, from a stove-leg to a flight 
of front stairs with balusters attached. 

For half an hour, or perhaps a little more. 
Ary kept the same crouching position, and 
stared with the same steadiness out upon the 
slated house-tops. I don’t know that she ever 
would have roused herself, had not a flock 
of pigeons, soft, sleek-coated things, swept, 
with a great flutter and whirring of wings, 
up to her window, and clung, with their pink 
feet, to the ledge outside. They looked in 
at her with their round eyes, and settled 
themselves down slowly, gently billing and 


Il8 THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 

cooing, while a few of the boldest pecked 
the glass impatiently with their beaks. 

These were Ary’s pets. She fed them, 
and regularly, three times a day, they rose 
up out of the narrow, noisy streets beneath, 
from under the horse’s hoofs and the rolling 
cart’ wheels, and flocked to the little attic 
window, as punctual to the time as though 
they all carried gold chronometer watches 
in their vest pockets. 

The sight of them aroused her, and, lift- 
ing the sash, she leaned out and crumbled 
bread amongst them. They were not at 
all shy. Some perched themselves on her 
shoulder, and others ate out of her hand. 
But even while she smiled and encouraged 
them, she sighed heavily, and murmured, 
” I can’t shake it off. I fear that this hope 
is going to fail, like all the rest. But I will 
not tell poor papa, he seems so sure of it. 
It may be, too, that I am over suspicious. 
But I will watch this Barney Q’Roach and 
the other one he was taking such pains to 


ARY. 


II9 

describe me to. I will watch, and say noth- 
ing. Surely I can outwit two doys.'* 

She emphasized the last word strongly, 
as if she were so old, and had all the ex- 
perience in the world. 


120 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


CHAPTER IX. 


FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 

O II, Shark’s Alley, was the only 



^ house in it that made any pretensions 
towards respectability. 

The blinds were kept carefully closed, the 
hinges were all in good order, — this last, 
especially, was a novelty thereabouts, — and 
the narrow side-lights that flanked the front 
door were darkly curtained, while the door 
itself, besides being locked, and barred, and 
bolted, was chained "with an ox-chain” — 
so said the Paul Prys of the neighborhood. 

The inmates of No. ii were also a pro- 
voking mystery. They were but two — a 
wiry old woman, who had a face like a 
hickory nut, and the girl Ary. 

What relation the two were to each other 
was not known. The hickory-faced dame 


FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 


I2I 


was as deaf as a door-post, and about as 
communicative, and Ary — no one dared 
to be familiar with her ; and so the mystery 
went on. 

The old woman traded in the corner gro- 
cery, and in the market just beside it ; and 
great was the amazement at the quantity of 
victuals and drink she bought. 

” How much they eat ! ” exclaimed every 
body ; " those two ! ” 

Once a month, very regularly, the close- 
shut blinds of No. ii were cautiously un- 
latched. Then there was a great bobbing 
of heads. Everybody was on tiptoe for a 
peep. But as regularly as the month came 
round, nothing further was seen than a long, 
bony arm, supposed to be the old woman’s, 
and a short-handled brush, that went jig- 
ging up and down together in a whirl of 
dust. As soon as the month’s dust and cob- 
webs were removed, whack ! snapped the 
slimly-parted blinds together again, and the 
Alleyites were no wiser than before. 

Then these last, who were much given 


122 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


to sunning themselves in their filthy door- 
ways, and hanging neck and shoulders out 
of the rickety windows, and who never 
troubled dirt, so long as they could climb 
over it, said, — since there was nothing else 
they could say, — "How scrumptious!” 

Then they bawled to the children to " come 
and look at the old woman throwing dust in 
their eyes.” 

Thus encouraged, forward rushed the 
children. Such shouting, and laughing, 
and jeering as these creatures would set up ! 
such impudent, senseless remarks as they 
called out ! 

" Take your time. Miss Lucy,” would sing 
one. " Hold your bosses, old girl,” would 
scream another. "Go in, Snooks,” would 
burst from a third ; and so on, the fun wax- 
ing hotter and hotter, until the bony arm had 
made its last flourish, and the brush its last 
clack against the slatted blinds, and No. ii 
had resumed its usual tomb-like repose. 

Every child has heard, at least ever}^ one 
in Shark’s Alley had, of the old woman, 


FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 


123 


who, at night, goes the rounds with a big 
bag of dust that she sifts down slowly and 
softly — so very softly that the little boys and 
girls don’t know anything about it till it is 
done — into the children’s eyes, until they 
are all filled up, so that they can’t see out 
of them. 

So at night, when the little Alleyites had 
to wink to keep their eyelids from sticking 
fast together, and their heads went bobbing 
round in spite of themselves, like a baby’s 
two weeks old, then they whispered, — for 
with the darkness came fear, even to the 
stoutest and sauciest, — "the old woman is 
throwing dust in our eyes.” This was what 
their mothers had reference to when the 
old woman, at No. ii, dusted down the 
blinds. 

And month succeeded month, and nobody 
had found an "Open, Sesame” to the mys- 
tery. So, at last, the neighbors contented 
themselves with a shake of the head when 
they looked at the house, and a distrustful 
sidelong glance at the old woman and her 


124 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


young companion whenever they appeared 
in sight. 

The small folks of Shark’s Alley did not 
exactly follow the suit of their elders. For 
while they flung all kinds of impudences at 
the old woman, they were speechless before 
Ary. If she had been a princess, these 
poor, tattered, torn, and forlorn ones could 
not have made bigger eyes at her. This 
was all the more strange, considering that 
they might have been the stones that paved 
the street, for all the attention she gave to 
them. 

Poor Ary ! with the face of a child and 
the heart of a woman ! Poor, hungry soul, 
who broke the tenth commandment, " Thou 
shall not covet,” a hundred times a day ; 
who would have changed places, in a min- 
ute, with even one of the dirty, ugly little 
Flanagans, who numbered sixteen, and their 
father only a day laborer, and who lived 
in an attic and a half, and grew uglier, and 
dirtier, and leaner as time went on, and their 
needs in the pork and molasses line in- 


FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 


125 


creased. Their bare attic looked to Ary a 
paradise, for it was a home. 

This, then, was the secret of all her long- 
ings — a home ; what so many children 
have and do not appreciate, and what she 
had never had. From her earliest remem- 
brance she had always been on the move. 
From city to city and state to state she 
had gone, halting here a month, and there 
a week, and there a day or a year, as the 
case might be. As she grew older, this life 
became intolerable. For she was no longer 
a child, innocent, and free, and joyous-heart- 
ed. Her young shoulders were burdened 
with anxieties, and fears, and suspicions. 
She had always lived with persons whom 
she had distrusted ; her name even she was 
told to keep secret ; but she tried to bear all 
hopefully, since her father, the only parent 
she had ever known, bade her to. 

Ary worshipped her father. It was sel- 
dom she saw him. When she did see him, 
he appeared all suddenly, from where she 
knew not, and disappeared at the end of the 


126 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


interview. And it was another mystery 
where he went to. 

"Father,” she would say often, "if you 
would only take me with you, if we could 
only live together in a little home of our 
own, where I could work for you, and see 
you every day, how happy I should be ! ” 

Sometimes her father would answer her 
gruffly, sometimes not at all ; but of late he 
had been more encouraging. It was only 
a few days before that he had told her to 
have patience a bit longer. 

" My little girl shall have a home with her 
father, — a home worth having, too, — and 
sooner, perhaps, than she thinks.” 

He did not meet her eyes — sparkling with 
delight they were — as she cried out breath- 
lessly, "O, father! it is almost too good to 
be true — isn’t it?” 

And now Ary dreamed of the " good time 
coming,” and built countless rose-colored 
castles in the air. She built them so high 
that sometimes she actually trembled lest 
they should totter and fall. And as her 


FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 


127 


experience had taught her to be suspicious, 
every sense was on the alert, every nerve 
high strung. 

Such being the case, there was something 
startling in Barney’s addressing her as ” Ary 
Schnapps.” She had controlled herself, to 
all outward appearance ; but over and over 
to herself she repeated fearfully, " What does 
it mean? What did he call me Schnapps 
for? He thought it was my name, perhaps. 
Schnapps, Schnapps ! What a queer sound 
the word has ! I certainly never heard it 
before.” 

She walked through the streets puzzling 
over this. The day was perfect, the sun 
bright, and the promenaders as brilliant as 
autumn leaves in October ; but if she had 
been a machine she could not have been 
more oblivious to all around her. 

It was not until she happened upon Bar- 
ney sprawled across the sidewalk like a 
pair of bars, that she realized anything in 
the present. Then, as her quick ear caught 
the mention of her name, and the description 


128 


YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


of herself, she started as if she had taken 
an electric shock. More than ever she felt 
now dire forebodings of trouble. 

"How can I find out what it means?” she 
asked herself. She determined to watch 
Barney, whom she knew very well by 
sight. 

it was easy enough to do this, since Bar- 
ney, all of a sudden, took to frequenting 
the pump trough that stood midway in the 
alley. Through the blinds Ary watched 
him, and found in this new cause for fear, 
though the trough was a general lounging- 
place for young and old, big and little, and 
had always its little knot of idlers, not one 
of whom looked more innocent than Barney 
himself, whose whole soul, when he was 
not gossiping or joking with the rest, seemed 
to be given to the whittling of little round 
sticks down to a very fine point — a thing 
which he managed in a miraculous manner, 
with the aid of a saw-toothed jackknife, 
rusty as an old nail. 

Ary, however, was not to be hoodwinked. 


FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 


129 


She did not show herself, nor step her foot 
out of the house ; she sat as erect as ever 
behind her blind. 

One day Philip Sands hobbled into the 
alley on a pair of crutches. He went di- 
rectly to the pump. 

”Just exactly,” commented the steady * 
watcher up above, "as though he knew 
where to find him.” 

Hardly had Philip seated himself on the 
rim of the trough beside Barney, when Ary 
caught sight of her father. He was but a 
few rods behind Philip. It looked as 
though he had been following him ; for, after 
hesitating a minute, he gave a black look 
in his direction, and, turning on his heel, 
hastily retraced his steps. 

"Ah ! ” whispered Ary, looking on at this 
pantomine, and drawing a long, long breath, 
"there is trouble ahead; no doubt of it now. 
And father knows something. Any one 
could tell it by his looks. If I could only 
see him, and talk it over ! ” 

9 


130 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


A minute she sank back in her chair help^ 
lessly ; then she arose with an air of deter- 
mination, and, after glancing once more 
through the blind down into the alley be- 
low, she left the room. 


BARNEY IN LIMBO. 


I3I 


CHAPTER X. 


BARNEY IN LIMBO 


HILIP’S head almost touched Barney’s. 



A He held an open letter in his hand. 
” You see, Barney,” said he, ” what we can 
do here isn’t worth shucks now. You must 
go. If your mother won’t let you, run 
away.” 

To this audacious advice Barney answered, 
hesitatingly, ” If me mother was anybody but 
herself; but — ” 

” I tell you you must go,” said Philip, un- 
consciously raising his voice, in his eager- 
ness. " Here’s uncle written to me to find 
him a smart boy to work in his tin shop, 
and he says Mr. Wurtzel is going into a 
decline.” 

Barney looked bewildered. "An’ who is 
that chap? Is he anything to do with us?” 


132 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


” He is the one Mr. Schnapps is valet to. 
As for watching her ” — here Philip looked 
towards No. ii — " any longer, that is non- 
sense. I’ve got a new start now, and I 
shan’t need to bother any more about her.” 

All at once there was a crash behind 
them, and they both turned their heads. 

There stood Ary, and on the ground at 
her feet lay a heavy water pitcher that had 
evidently just slipped from her hands. 

Philip thrust — so he thought — his letter 
into his pocket, while Barney sprang and 
lifted the pitcher, which had escaped injury, 
but was minus its handle. 

” I let it fall,” said she. " It was very 
careless ; I am very much obliged to you.” 
And she took the pitcher from Barney. 

She appeared quite at her ease. Not so 
Barney. He was rather awkward ; for af- 
ter the first start, he wondered if she had 
heard what Philip had said. Philip himself 
was looking a little rueful, being also in 
doubt on the same subject. 

Ary stepped up to the pump with her 


BARNEY IN LIMBO. 


133 


pitcher, and almost let it fall again. She 
must have had very little strength in her 
hands. 

" Let me fill it,” said Philip, hobbling for- 
ward; and he pumped it full. Then Bar- 
ney, happening to spy the letter upon the 
ground, stooped and put it in his own pock- 
et till he should have a chance to hand it 
to Philip again. 

Ary looked at her pitcher, and then at 
Barney. He, with the quickness of his 
race, took the hint. 

"If ye’d like me to carry it in for ye. Pm 
at your sarvice,” said he, gallantly. 

" I was going to ask if you would,” was 
her answer. 

Philip gave Barney a nudge, which 
meant, " Keep your eyes open ; ” and with 
great alacrity and much secret pleasure, 
Barney followed his fair guide into No. ii. 

Ary said nothing, but led the way silent- 
ly up the front steps, through the door which 
she had left ajar, and up a steep flight of 
stairs to a small back room, just across the 


134 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


entry. She motioned Barney to pass in 
before her. 

There was a table in the centre of the 
room, upon which he placed the pitcher ; 
and then he turned to go, though not be- 
fore he had cast a sharp glance around, 
that showed he had not forgotten Philip’s 
nudge in his ribs. 

” I am very much obliged to you, Bar- 
ne}^” said Ary, who was standing with her 
back against the closed door. 

Barney wondered how she came to know 
his name; but he answered, readily enough, 
” Not the laste bit in the world, sure. Miss 
Ary. An’ now I think I’ll be lavin’.” This 
last was added after a short pause, during 
which Barney stood just in front of Ary, 
who still kept her back placed squarely up 
against the door. 

” No, don’t go 3^et,” said Ary. ” I want 
to say something to you.” 

Barney looked his surprise. 

” I got you to bring in the pitcher on pur- 
pose,” continued Ary, gravely, ” because I 


BARNEY IN LIMBO. 


135 


saw you pick up the letter and put it in your 
pocket. Will you give me that letter?” 

"It’s not mine to give,” returned Barney, 
beginning to see, as a sailor would say, 
the lay of the land. 

" I know whose it is,” said she, in answer 
to Barney’s evasion of the question, " and 
I asked you to give it to me.” 

Barney opened wide his light-blue eyes 
at her audacity. "Suppose,” said he, "you 
don’t get it for the askin’ ? ” 

"You’re my prisoner, then.” 

Barney laughed outright. "Come, Phil 
is waitin’ for me.” As he spoke, he put his 
hand upon Ary’s shoulder, to move her 
away from the door, for she still kept her 
position against it. 

" It is locked,” said she, stepping aside ; 
and Barney found it so. 

"That window,” continued she, pointing 
to it, — it was the only one, — "is nothing 
but sham. It is walled up.” 

Barney, nothing daunted, lifted the win- 
dow curtain. The window frame was 


136 THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 

there, but it was filled in with brick and 
cement. There was a sort of half twilight in 
the room. Where did the light come from? 
High up near the ceiling there were round 
holes, like funnel holes, cut through the 
wall. 

” I can shut all those with the pressure 
of a finger,” remarked Ary, following Bar- 
ney’s eyes upwards. ” I will show you how 
it is done.” 

There was a faint click, and a sudden 
darkness, like midnight, filled all the room. 

"Now will you give me the letter?” said 
Ary. 

" Niver ! ” exclaimed Barney, indignantly. 
"Ye’ve trapped me. Miss Ary, as cunning 
as a spider traps a fly ; but ye’re as far as 
iver from gaining your ends. I’ll ate the 
letter, an’ chew ivery word in it to powder, 
before ye shall get it.” 

"Barney,” — and her hand, burning hot, 
touched his, — "that letter concerns me. I 
hate anything mean just as much as you. 
But there is nothing in all the world too 


BARNEY IN LIMBO. 


137 


mean for me to do, if doing it would get 
me that letter. If you will only let me 
read it here, before you, I will give it back, 
and then you can go.” 

"No,” said Barney, "there’s no tasing 
me into it, at all, at all. An’ if ye don’t 
lave me go soon. I’ll make noise enough to 
rouse the whole neighborhood.” 

" The noise you make here won’t disturb 
anybody. The walls are built solid.” 

Barney whistled. " I’ve put my foot into 
it this time,” thought he ; and then aloud he 
added, " Do your worst. I’ll die game, 
anyhow you can fix it. What’s cornin’ 
next? ” 

" Nothing ; only you’d better do as I want 
you to. I’ll give you a little time to think 
it over.” 

Barney saw the door open, and sprang 
for it ; but he was too late. The key grated 
in the lock outside, as he grasped the han- 
dle. He rattled it, ajid called out, " Here ! 
hulloa ! help ! help ! help ! ” as loud as he 


138 THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 

% 

could : but his voice seemed to roll back on 
him, strangely dull and muffled. 

Barney was not easily frightened. He 
stood stock still for a minute, and then he 
thrust both hands down to the bottom of 
his trousers pockets. ” What in Texas am 
I going to do ? ” he asked himself. 

He groped his way, in the black dark- 
ness, to the table, and sat down upon one 
of the chairs, placed in boarding-house style 
around it. 

He thought of Philip waiting by the 
pump trough for him. He wondered if he 
was there now. He wondered what time 
it was, and if his mother was worrying, 
and what all the childers would say be- 
cause he didn’t come home to supper. And 
finally, it felt very close and warm, and 
there was a ringing in his ears, and he 
knew nothing more ; and all unconsciously 
— for he was sound asleep — he slid from 
his chair down upon, the floor under the 
table. 


THE FIRE. 


139 


CHAPTER XL 

THE FIRE. 

T3ARNEY opened his eyes bewildered. 

There was a confused sound in his 
ears. He could not think where he was, 
nor what had happened. Slowly it all came 
to him. But where was he now? And 
where did the noise come from? And what 
did the light shining through the curtain 
mean? 

It took him some time to find out that the 
curtain was the green baize table-covering, 
and that the light came from gas jets 
set in the wall, and that he lay in a heap 
on the floor, underneath the table. When 
he had mastered all this, he raised himself 
cautiously upon his hands and knees, — very 
cautiously indeed he did it, for six pairs of 
feet made a circle round about him, — and 


140 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


through a hole in the green baize he tried 
to make out something further. 

There were six persons, all men, seated 
around the table. He knew this by the six 
pair of feet tucked under the edge of the 
green baize table-covering. As for what 
he could hear, that was almost as confused 
as on his first awaking. 

There was evidently a dispute about 
something. Barney could distinguish one 
voice, a clear, boyish voice, that rose above 
the rest. 

At length this voice cried out, as if its 
owner was beside himself, ”You are big 
cheats and liars. You are a set of thieves, 
as well as gamblers. You have stolen my 
last penny ; I will be revenged ; ” and quick 
upon the last word came the report of a 
pistol. 

Immediately all was commotion. The 
six pairs of feet disappeared from under the 
table, and through a hole in the green baize 
Barney could see a tall, light-haired strip- 


THE FIRE. 


I4I 

ling brandishing a pistol, and thus keeping 
at bay five large, heavy-bearded men. 

But the odds were too great. Step by 
step the young desperado was driven back 
against the wall. He had, however, no 
thought of surrendering. He brought down 
the but-end of his pistol with lightning-like 
rapidit}^. 

”Take that, and that, and that,” he cried;- 
and the ringing blows descended impartially 
upon heads and shoulders. 

The din that now arose was terrific. Oaths 
and imprecations thickened the air, pistols 

were drawn, knives with murderous look- 

» 

ing blades were unsheathed, and Barney 
shuddered, as he squinted through his loop- 
hole, to think how soon the young man 
would be made minced meat of. 

Then, all at once, Barney became con- 
scious of a most uncomfortable feeling. 
There was a smell of something burning. 
A prickly heat ran all over him, like a 
thrill. In his consternation he forgot where 
he was, and tried to stand up. He gave 


142 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


his head a terrible thump ; and the next 
thing he knew, the baize table-covering 
all around him was in a blaze. 

Without stopping for ceremony, Barney 
dived head foremost through the flames, 
screaming at the top of his lungs, ” Fire ! 
fire ! fire I ” 

If he had been a supernatural visitor from 
the lower world, and the blaze behind him 
some of the fire and brimstone with which 
that region is said to abound, he could not 
have looked more unearthly. Perhaps some 
such notion was entertained. At least the 
disputants gazed spell-bound for a moment, 
first at him and then at the burning baize, 
and made no motion either to subdue or flee 
from the fiery element, that, in wrapping 
chairs and table, was mounting upwards, 
almost to the ceiling. 

Just at this instant the door of the room 
burst open. The men that entered were 
dressed in citizens' clothes, but the one that 
came first wore a silver star on the breast 
of his coat. 


THE FIRE. 


143 


" The police ! ” With the cry, the gam- 
blers rushed to the other side of the room. 
A secret door, cut in the solid wall, was 
opened as if by magic; but the men, who 
had thought to escape thus from the hands 
of justice, paused in dismay, for a volume 
of smoke and flame poured through the 
opening. They could feel the scorching 
heat upon their faces. The prospect before 
them was not encouraging, but behind 
stood the officers of the law, iron armed 
and hearted. 

With a low mutter of rage and despair, 
they pressed forward ; the door slid into 
place as the last one disappeared, and there 
was the blank wall again, for those who 
were left to gape at. 

"We must contrive to cut them off in 
some way,” said the wearer of the star. 
" Follow me now, and be lively ; ” and he 
marshalled his men hurriedly out of the 
same door they had entered. 

All this happened in much less time than 
it has taken to tell it. And Barney had 


144 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


been so occupied looking at the others that 
he entirely forgot himself, until now he was 
much surprised to find that he had been 
taken no notice of, and was left standing 
just where he had landed when he bounced 
out from under the table and gave the alarm 
of fire. 

By this time the room was getting a little 
too hot to be comfortable, and he was about 
springing through the open doorway, when 
he heard a groan, and, looking around, saw 
the young man who had fought so desper- 
ately lying upon the floor. 

Are you hurt?” asked Barney, making 
a step towards him. 

” For Heaven’s sake don’t leave me here 
to die ! ” was the answer, accompanied by a 
still louder groan. 

"Where are you hurt?” said Barney. 

" I’ll do all I can for you, but what can I do 
if you can’t walk? I don’t believe I can 
carry you.” 

He was standing beside the young man, 
and looking down at him as he spoke. He 


THE FIRE. 


145 


was impatient and flurried, for he felt that 
losing time just now was dangerous busi- 
ness. 

" Help me up. Let’s see what I can do.” 

With difficulty Barney managed to get 
him on his feet. White as a sheet, he 
leaned up against the wall. 

" It’s no go,” he murmured. " I can’t 
walk a step. I’m stuck right through the 
leg. Save yourself, youngster. You can 
do me no good. I deserve all that has 
happened to me.” 

Barney looked terribly undecided. The 
fire was within a few rods of him. It was 
dangerous staying, but to go and leave this 
young man behind to be burned to death 
didn’t seem exactly the thing. To be sure, 
the young man deserved it, — so he said, — 
and he had told him to go ; but his lips quiv- 
ered with the words, and his eyes were full 
of despair. 

” May I be burned to flinders me own 
silf,” blurted Barney, '' if I go widout ye ; ” 
and he faced about after having turned a 


146 Vhe young detective. 

second time to go. His mind was made 
up at last. 

A ray of hope darted across the young 
man’s pale face. ” Perhaps,” said he, "I 
might creep on my hands and knees. I’ll 
try it.” 

With difficulty he put himself in position, 
and after a painful effort succeeded in drag- 
ging himself a short distance upon the floor. 
But the great drops of perspiration stood 
out upon his forehead like rain. 

" This will - not do,” said he, weakly ; 
” moving at this slow rate will amount to 
nothing ; ” and faint with exhaustion, he 
sank back, and, hiding his face in his 
hands, cried like a baby. 

” Whist, now ! ” exclaimed Barney, ” an’ 
I’ll carry ye on me back. Bad luck to me 
for not thinking of it before.” 

”No, no,” was the answer, with a de- 
spondent shake of the head. " I should be 
a dead weight ; I am as helpless as a log.” 

” An’ I am as strong as a lion,” said Bar- 
ney, kneeling down in front of his disabled 


THE FIRE. 


147 


companion. ”Put your two hands round 
me neck. Now, hist ! ” 

He prolonged the last word, which was 
an abbreviation of hoists something as the 
sailors intone their "heave, ho,” when they 
are hauling in the anchor, and give a long 
pull, and a strong pull, and a pull all to- 
gether. 

This practice, I suspect, is a great help 
to the muscles. It seemed so in Barney’s 
case, for with the word he lifted the young 
man upon his back as though he had been 
a feather, and, nerved by desperation, started 
off at a good round pace. 

The landing outside was filled with 
smoke. The stairs crackled underneath his 
feet, and through the lower entry the flames 
were already sweeping. Barney’s heart 
sank, as, with his foot on the last stair, he 
debated with his pig-a-back friend what 
it was best to do. 

"Throw me overboard,” said the young 
man. " If you are alone you can get 
through.” 


148 THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 

Barney said nothing; but he clung to 
him tighter than ever. So they stood a 
moment, while the hot flames fanned their 
faces. The snapping of the pine wood all 
around them sounded loud in their ears like 
the report of fire-arms, while from outside 
they could hear the hoarse murmur of 
voices, the shouts of the firemen giving 
orders, and the hissing of the water, as, 
thrown with force, it met the flames. 

It was a moment that Barney never for- 
got. He thought of his home so near and 
yet so far away ; of his mother, his broth- 
ers and sisters, of Philip, of Ary. If it had 
not been for her he would not have been 
here. O, how he hated her ! He would 
like to have a reckoning with her for this. 
But, then, perhaps she was dead, and he 
was going to die soon. He wondered how 
it would be when they were both dead. If 
he should see her then, would he hate her 
just the same? 

And while his ideas were floundering in 
this way, and he was getting more and 






» m 


t 


I ■ 



L>arney at the P^ire. Pa£;'e 149. 


THE FIRE. 


149 


more confused, something darted towards 
him ; he hardly knew what at first, his 
senses were so scattered. 

But when a voice said, " Barney I how 
glad I am ! I have been hunting every- 
where. I would not leave the house till 
I had found you,” he knew it to be Ary. 

"Follow me,” she continued, her hands 
running over him lightly, as though she 
wanted to be sure it. was Barney, and no- 
body else. Indeed, a mistake might easily 
be made, for the flicker of the flames 
through the smoke cast neither a steady 
nor a Very bright light upon the group at 
the foot of the stairs. 

" Give me your hand,” said Ary ; and she 
led Barney, staggering now with the bur- 
den on his shoulders, down another flight 
of stairs, into the cellar, and into a bricked 
passage-way, dark, and damp, and mouldy. 

It was long and narrow beside, and Bar- 
ney drew a long breath when, finally, he 
stood in the open air. At first he could 
not tell where he was ; but soon things. 


150 THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 

seen by the dim light of the stars, took 
familiar shape, and he knew the street for 
one a few minutes’ walk from Shark’s 
Alley. 

After making out so much, he looked 
round for Ary ; but she was not to be seen. 
Whether or not she had come out with 
them, he could not tell. 


CARL MENTZ. 


I51 


CHAPTER XII. 

CARL MENTZ. 

'T'HE street where Barney found himself 
was situated in the midst of wharves. 
It was crooked and dingy, and lined on 
either side with old, tumble-down shops, 
where all sorts of ships’ stores and rig- 
gings were sold. In the daytime, innu- 
merable drays and drag-carts rumbled and 
trundled along, a continuous stream, al- 
ways going and coming. 

But now the place was deserted. Not 
even a stray dog or cat skulked past, and 
the figure of the sailor, life size, cut in 
wood, that stood for a sign at the door of 
one of the shops, with his hand upraised, 
looked murderous and ghastly. Once in 
a while a sudden glare of light brightened 
up things a moment, and then the black 


152 


THE YOUNG. DETECTIVE. 


hulls of the ships could be seen, and the 
masts with the sails close-furled, looking 
like huge skeletons holding out. their long, 
bony arms. 

Barney’s companion sat on a wooden step, 
his back propped against an old iron anchor. 

" It’s rather a hard resting-place — ain’t it, 
now?” asked Barney, who was standing 
beside him. ” But if ye could jist manage 
till I go for somebody to help me, then ye 
can be carried to any place ye plaze. May- 
hap, sir, ye’d like a carriage. That might 
be asier than the other way,” continued 
Barney, finding that his first remark was 
not responded to. There came a glare of 
light just then. It showed the young man 
with his head bowed upon his hands, that 
were clasped over the anchor. His long, 
light hair fell down over his forehead, and 
his whole attitude was one of deep dejection. 

" Come, cheer up,” continued Barney. 
” The worst is over, sure. Ye’re not dead. 
If ye were, ye might take on. That would 
be enough to make you.” 


CARL MENTZ. 


153 


wish I was dead,” said the young man, 
lifting up a woe-begone visage. ” I am sor- 
ry you saved me. Suppose you carry me 
down to the water, there, and pitch me over- 
board. It isn’t far. It would be an act of 
charity. I’ll pay you to -do it. I’ll give you 
my watch, and coat, and boots.” 

” See here, mister,” exclaimed Barney ; 
”you must be in a pretty bad fix.” 

"I didn’t dare to die, and now I don’t dare 
to live,” muttered the young man, as if talk- 
ing to himself; and then he groaned. 

” What is the matter, anyhow? ” exclaimed 
Barney, brim full of curiosity. "I didn’t find 
you in the best of company, nor in the best 
of businesses, but I kinder thought you was 
different from the rest. You don’t say you 
belonged to them fellers, after all?” 

I did belong to them, body and soul, for 
a little while. Now that I am ruined and 
lost forever, I can see what a fool they made 
of me. But there is no use of my talking 
it over to 3^ou. You're one of the batch.” 

” Not by a jug full. I live within a stone’s 


154 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


throw of the house, but I was niver inside 
of it before. So you needn’t be afraid of 
telling me anything. Perhaps I might help 
you out of the scrape. Sure an’ I’d like to.” 

" Do you know of any place where I could 
hide?” 

” Faith, now, and I don’t,” said Barney, 
reluctantly. ”I could take ye home with 
me, but there’s small chance of hiding there 
ye’d find. There’s six of us, and only one 
room and a dark bedroom to stow ourselves 
away in.” 

” I might as well give myself up, I sup- 
pose,” was the reply ; and then, as if it was 
more than he could endure, he cried out, des- 
perately, ”No, I will not. I swear I will 
not. I will kill myself. I will end this mis- 
erable life. May God forgive me for it. 
Come, boy, take me down to the wharf. 
Quick ! or my courage may fail me.” 

Barney did not speak or make a motion 
towards him. 

" Do you know what I am doomed to, if 
I live?” went on the half-crazed voice. ”To 


CARL MENTZ. 


155 


long, long years of torture ; to a living 
death, shut out from light, and air, and 
freedom ; to a prison cell, barred and bolted, 
and built of stone- and iron, as if for a vdld 
beast. I will dash my brains out upon the 
pavements here at my feet rather than sub- 
mit to such a fate.” 

He made a motion forward as he spoke 
the last words ; but Barney, whose eyes 
were by this time somewhat accustomed to 
the darkness, caught his arm, and pulled 
him back, crying, "Don’t, don’t; for Heav- 
en’s sake, don’t. Come home with me. I 
will hide you. I’ll manage it some way.” 

"You might get yourself into trouble, you 
know,” said the young man ; " and I’d as lief 
finish the job as not, now I’ve got started. 
Come, friend, you’re the last one I shall 
ever trouble in this world any more. Are 
you ready for the last lift ? ” 

Barney took him upon his back in silence, 
and started on the full run. His companion 
did not seem to notice that he was being 
carried in just the opposite direction to the 


156 THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 

wharves. He did not seem to notice the 
glare from the fire, which every moment 
grew brighter and brighter. It was only 
when Barney, puffing away like a steam 
engine, said, breathlessly, "Now, sir, here 
you are,” that he roused himself enough to 
murmur sleepily, " All right ; I won’t go 
back on myself this time. Help me off with 
my coat and boots. Is it much of a jump? 
Ugh ! how cold the water will be. I wish I 
could see. It is so dark, so dark ! ” 

" It isn’t dark I Open your eyes ! Of 
course you can’t see, and them shut. Wake 
up, wake up, I say ; ” and Barney shook 
him vigorously. 

Thus beset, the young man opened his 
eyes heavily, like a person coming out of a 
stupor, and looked around him bewildered. 
And well he might, for he found himself 
propped against the railing of an old shed, 
while all around him it was as light as day. 

"You see,” said Barney, "we’re pretty 
near the fire ; but the wind blows it the 
other way ; so there’s no danger.’* 


CARL MENTZ. 


157 


”But this isn’t the wharf. Where am I? ” 

” I’ve brought you home. I came the shed 
way, and not a sowl has set eyes on me. 
An’ not a one is there in the house ; I’ve jist 
been in an’ took a look round. I very one 
an’ their gran’mother has gone to the fire.” 

”But what have you brought me here 
for?” 

"For to stow away, of course, jist as you 
axed me in the fust of it. Ye didn’t think 
I’d let ye throw yesilf overboard — did ye ? ” 

" You’ll hide me, will you, where nobody 
can find me? Not even the Great Mogul 
himself ? ” 

"You’re gettin’ as crazy as a loon,” ex- 
claimed Barney ; " whatever shall I do with 
you? an’ here’s this winder. Shure I’ll niver 
git ye through it alone. If we could only 
manage this, I’d get ye straight into the little 
bedroom, an’ ye can lock yeself in an’ stay 
there to-night, an’ in the mdrnin’ mayhap 
ye’ll have yer wits better, an’ can think of 
something else. But, thin, ye don’t know 
what I’m a tellin’ yer.” 


158 THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 

"Don’t I, though ! ” exclaimed the young 
man, coming to himself all at once. " Is it 
that window?” pointing to one a few feet 
above the shed. 

" Yes ; you can get into the entry so, an’ 
thin the bedroom door leads from the 
entry.” 

"There’s one more chance for me, then — 
is there ? Thank God for that ! ” cried the 
young man, fervently. "Now, then, stoop 
down under the window, so ; ” and resting his 
sound limb on Barney’s shoulder, he raised 
himself by his hands, and took a sitting pos- 
ture upon the window-sill. 

Barney looked at him in surprise. "I 
wouldn’t believe you could have done it.” 

"Ah, I have got new life and courage in 
me,” said the young man, almost gayly. 
" Lead on to the bedroom. If you have 
raised my hopes too high, woe be unto you.” 

By resting heavily upon Barne}^ he man- 
aged to drag himself the few steps between 
the window and the bedroom door. When 


CARL MENTZ. I59 

he had entered, he locked the door behind 
him. 

" Strike a light the first thing,” he whis- 
pered. " I’ll make out to hold up the wall 
while you do that.” 

Barney blundered round in the dark, out 
into the other room, and finally " struck a 
light” in the shape of a tallow candle, which 
he brought in to his visitor. 

" Ha !” cried he ; and, seizing the light, he 
held it up at arm’s length, and then looked 
sharply all about the room. Then he looked 
at Barney in the same sharp manner. 

"Good boy ! ” remarked he, an easy look 
replacing the sharp one ; " you’re a true 
blue, after all, I guess ; and what may be 
your name?” 

"Barney O’Roach, sir.” 

" And mine is Carl Mentz. That is really 
my name. You see how I trust you.” 

" Faith, an’ you may ! ” exclaimed Barney, 
impulsively. There was a sort of a taking 
way with this strange young man. It took 
Barney’s heart at once. 


i6o 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


"And so, Barney, you live here with your 
mother, and how many brothers and sis- 
ters ? ” 

"Five, all brothers. Fm the oldest.” 

" And your mother has taken the children 
to see the fire ? ” 

" I think so, bein’ they’re not here.” 

" Have you thought what to say when 
your mother comes home and finds her bed- 
room tenanted by a stranger ? ” 

" ni tell her you’re a friend come to stay 
all night.” 

" That will set her to asking no end of 
questions. No, no ; that won’t do.” 

Against the wall, depending from nails 
driven there for the purpose, was Mrs. 
O’Roach’s slender stock of dresses. Upon 
these Carl’s eyes fell. 

"I have it,” said he. "I’ve masqueraded 
before ; always for the fun of the thing, 
though. But now I’ll come to it, out of dire 
necessity.” 


THE WOUNDED MAN. 


l6l 


CHAPTER XIII. 


THE WOUNDED MAN. 

RE there any Cheap John shops near?” 



^ inquired Carl Mentz, after a few mo- 
ments of silence, during which he appeared 
to be cogitating over something. 

” Cheap John shops?” repeated Barney, 
as if perplexed. 

”Yes, or did do’, if you like that better; 
where they sell things second hand.” 

" Right on the corner there’s one.” 

'^Good. I’ll send my coat over and ask 
for an exchange. I’ll write down a list of 
the things I want.” 

He drew forth a little pocket-memoran- 
dum, and wrote hastily upon one of the 
pages. Tearing this out, he divested him- 
self of his coat, — a fine black broadcloth, — 
and handing the two to Barney, said, "You 


II 


i 62 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


have only to give the list and show the coat, 
and there’ll he no danger but they’ll send 
the toggery fast enough. Now don’t let the 
grass grow under your feet.” 

As Barney started to go, he continued, 
'"I shall take the liberty to lock the bed- 
room door during your absence. Your 
mamma might step in upon me unawares, 
and I am not, as yet, ready to receive com- 
pany.” 

He was as gay as a lark. You would 
have thought he was some school-boy out on 
a frolic. Barney asked himself if this could 
be the same young man that such a very short 
time before had preferred drowning to liv- 
ing? He departed on his errand ”big ” with 
thought. 

It was by this time about four o’clock in the 
morning. Not a very promising time to go 
shopping. This item, however, had not en- 
tered the rattle-brained head of Carl Mentz. 
Barney, also, had never once thought of it. 

Happily, though, the mistress of the old 
do’ store lived in the same tenement, and. 


THE WOUNDED MAN. 1 63 

having been roused by the fire, stood just 
inside the door, with her night-capped head 
thrust outside. 

She saw Barney as he mounted the steps, 
with the coat thrown over one arm. 

"You have no come to trade, little poy, 
eh?” said she, in a surprised voice. 

"Yes, Mother Ishmael,” replied Barney, 
rather hesitatingly ; for all at once he 
bethought himself of the strangeness of the 
hour. 

" Goot ! ” exclaimed Mother Ishmael. 
"You know me, eh! Vat little poy ish 
you?” 

" I’m in a hurry to trade,” answered Bar- 
ney, his bump of caution coming into play. 
" If you don’t want to make a bargain. I’ll 
go somewhere else.” 

" Vy, vy ! you ish too sharp for me. But 
come in. Mother Ishmael will do petter py 
you than any oder.” 

There was a kerosene lamp upon the 
counter, burning very faintly. The old wo- 
man turned up the flame higher, by means 


164 the young detective. 

of a screw attached to the wick, and looked 
at the coat. 

She turned it inside and out, pulled the 
seams apart, rubbed up the velvet collar, 
and examined eveiy button and button- 
hole, separately. 

” It ish worth ver’ little,” said she. " De 
waist ish ver’ short ; de sleeve ish too long. 
It ish not de fashion at all. Dere ish de 
moth-bite on de front, beside. How much 
monish you expec, eh ! ” 

" I don’t want money at all. I want to 
swap it off for what’s down here ; ” and Bar- 
ney handed her the written list. 

The frill of Mother Ishmael’s night-cap 
was so wide and full, that even Barney was 
struck with it. - It stood right up straight all 
around her withered face, and as she pored 
over the list, spelling aloud the words, and 
pointing them out with her fore finger, and 
holding the paper very close to the smoky 
chimney of the lamp, it solemnly flapped 
backward and forward, as though it was set 
on a hinge. 


THE WOUNDED MAN. 1 65 

” I will take de coat,” she remarked, final- 
ly. ” It ish one ver’ bad bargain for Mother 
Ishmael. She alwa3^s lose on all her cus- 
tomer. It ish twice what any oder would 
give. You will know where to come nex 
time, eh?” 

While she talked, she was busy making 
up a bundle. It was so dark in the shop 
that Barney could not make out what the 
different articles were. 

” Here, you ish,” at last said Mother Ish- 
mael, giving him the bundle, and looking 
at him sharply. "I have give too much. I 
have loss. Are they no coat more to home, 
eh?” 

It was evident, in spite of her talk, that 
she had made a good bargain, and was much 
pleased thereat, and that she was fishing for 
more. 

Simply answering her question in the 
negative, Barney took the bundle and left 
the shop. 

The fire was now on the wane. By a 


1 66 THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 

miracle, the adjacent buildings had escaped 
serious damage; but No. ii was a heap of 
smouldering ruins. It was torn, as it were, 
up from its very foundations. Hardly one 
stone was left standing on another. The 
crowd that had all pressed forward a short 
time ago, now surged backward again. 
The alley was choked up with the stream of 
folks pouring out of it. The flames had 
died down. It w^as no longer as light as 
day. Only the firemen’s lanterns shone out 
bright at the farther end of the alley, and 
the one solitary street lamp that did duty at 
the other end, just where it met the street, 
winked feebly through the gloom, like a 
watery eye. The alley ites, who, on the 
first alarm, had rushed pell-mell out of their 
houses, expecting to be burned in their beds, 
now flocked to their homes again. 

” That’s what ailed mother,” thought Bar- 
ney. ”She was frightened and run away 
with the young ones. Like as not they’re 
all in their night-gowns. She’ll come back 


now. 


THE WOUNDED MAN. 


167 


He- edged his way along as rapidly as pos- 
sible. Just before he reached the house, he 
came upon a denser crowd than ever. He 
tried to fight against it, but that was simply 
impossible. He was taken right off his feet, 
and carried backwards a short distance ; 
then he was jammed forward, and then he 
was wedged in between a pair of sharp el- 
bows, which went digging into his ribs like 
a couple of knitting-needles, and finally he 
was shoved sidewise, and then he caught 
the glimmer of lanterns, and came in sight 
of the cause of all the excitement. 

Upon a wooden shutter lay a man groan- 
ing terribly. His face and hands were black 
as a cinder, his clothes hung on him in 
shreds ; he was evidently a sufferer from the 
fire. The shutter was carried upon the 
shoulders of four men. Each one upheld a 
corner. They had now come to a stand- 
still. In front of the bearers were men with 
lanterns. 

" Can’t you get on ? ” asked a voice of 


i68 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


authority ; and then, addressing the crowd, 
" Make way ; make way, there ! ” 

But there was no way made. Indeed, 
folks had got into such a snarl, that it 
seemed as though they never could get un- 
ravelled. 

" I think, sir,” said one of the shutter- 
bearers, ” that we had better get him into 
one of these houses, and send for a doctor 
to examine him. He seems to be powerful 
bad ,* and he gasps as if he were dying.” 

"Very well,” said the authoritative voice ; 
" bring him in here ! ” 

Barney saw that it was his house that was 
designated. A greater commotion than ever 
immediately sprang up around him. He 
was lifted off his feet, and dug into so by 
the two elbows, that he felt sure he was 
having a hole bored right through him. He 
heard some one say, "The police are fight- 
ing their way into the house ; ” and then it 
seemed as though an avalanche bore down 
upon him, and swept him like a cobweb, he 
was so flimsy by this time, smack against 


THE WOUNDED MAN. 1 69 

something, round which he clung like a 
drowning man clutching a straw. 

It was the door-post — so he saw the next 
moment — that he was hugging so despe- 
rately ; but in the same breath another rush 
came, and, lifted as it were upon an ocean- 
wave, he found himself landed at last, high 
and dry, in the entry-way of his own house. 
Around him were a number of black-coated 
gentlemen, one of whom, upon whose breast 
shone a silver star, Barney recognized. He 
was the leader of the police force that had 
surprised the gamblers at No. ii. 

The injured man, shutter and all, was 
carefully lowered to the floor. His groans 
were now terrible to hear. He fought, he 
wrestled, he writhed with agony. It took 
three or four of the policemen to hold him. 
The others, with their lanterns in hand, 
stood near in a group, glad to rest from the 
arduous task they had just performed at 
their chief’s order. 

They showed signs of their recent strug- 
gle through the crowd, while a singed beard 


170 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


here and there, or a blackened face or hand, 
gave token of the fire they had so barely 
escaped. 

Barney was not the only one who had 
been borne into the house by the human 
tide outside. There were a number of oth- 
ers who had come as unwittingly, and in 
quite as uncomfortable a manner, as he. 
And filling up the door-way, and the space 
in front of the police, stood a gaping crowd 
in solid phalanx. 

”Ah,” said one of the group of police- 
men, wiping with his hand his forehead, 
plentifully bedewed with perspiration. 
" this night’s job beats all I ever had to 
do with.” 

"Or I ! ” was the response from one of 
the others. "And to think, too, that we 
didn’t catch one we were after, when we 
had tracked them so close, too ! ” 

" ' Old birds are not to be caught with 
chaff,’ ” remarked a third, who made a 
rather comical appearance in a monkey 
jacket, 'which was a coat, until his late 


THE WOUNDED MAN. 171 

onslaught on the crowd had made it tailless. 
"But can any of you make out who he 
is?” He pointed his thumb over his shoul- 
der towards the man that lay on the shutter. 

All shook their heads. " He’s burnt so 
terribly,” said the owner of an extremely 
battered hat, " his own mother wouldn’t 
know him. But he had cause to fear us, 
or he’d never have tried to rush it through 
the place he did.” 

" He ran like a cat, though, didn’t he, on 
that burning roof? He would have escaped 
easy, if it hadn’t been for his blundering 
through that sky-light. I don’t understand 
how any one so sharp could have done it.” 

" I wonder ! ” exclaimed another, " he 
didn’t roast alive before they took him out 
from under the wall. It would have been 
better if he had. It’s terrible to have him 
suffer so.” 

" I’d like to know who he is. He won’t 
live to tell though ; and perhaps he wouldn’t 
tell, any way.” And so each took part in 
the conversation, and all wondered who the 


172 THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 

sufferer could be, and none could give a 
guess, he was so disfigured, so scarred, so 
changed from ordinary shape and sem- 
blance. Poor creature I It would indeed 
have been better if he had died. Every 
minute was a lifetime of agony to him. 

" Perhaps it would be easier,” said the 
chief, who was bending over him, ”if we 
could get some kind of a bed or mattress to 
lay him on. See if there isn’t one in the 
house, that we can have, and clear the entry. 
The air is stifling.” 

To hear, of course, was to obey ; and in a 
few minutes the entry held nobody but the 
police and their prisoner, a gentleman who 
had stepped out of the crowd and announced 
himself as a doctor, and Barney, who, be- 
sides proclaiming the fact that he lived in 
the house, also offered a feather bed for the 
comfort of'the injured man. 


THE OLD WOMAN. 


173 


CHAPTER XIV. 

THE OLD WOMAN. 

B arney was half way up the stairs, 
with two policemen in tow behind him, 
when they were called to, from below — 
Stop ! ” 

Looking back, they saw the four, who had 
carried the wounded man, making ready to 
lift him to their shoulders again ; while the 
sonorous voice of the doctor — a pompous- 
looking, gray-haired man — was heard 
saying, ” You would not get him to the hos- 
pital alive. It would be unnecessary tor- 
ture. Carry him up stairs, and lay him on 
the bed. There is nothing that can be done 
for him. If he had killed himself outright, 
it would have been a mercy.” 

So, slowly, with a solemn " tramp, tramp, 
tramp,” jarring their burden as little as pos- 


174 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


sible, the men ascended. And Barney, 
wondering what his mother would say to 
these strange proceedings, fearful of he 
knew not what, and altogether topsy- 
turvy with the night’s startling events, saw 
the injured man laid upon the patch-work 
quilt that covered his mother’s bed. 

This quilt was the pride of the O’Roaches. 
It was for ornament, and not for use ; since 
it was taken off and folded up when Mrs. 
O’Roach and the three smallest O’Roaches, 
who occupied the same bed, retired for the 
night. It was altogether too fine to be even 
slept under. But now, nobody thought of 
the quilt ; and the water dripped upon it, 
and the cinders besmooched it, and the 
blood — for the poor creature had been cut 
and bruised by his fall — trickled over the 
little pink and yellow calico squares ; and 
Barney, looking on all the time, never no- 
ticed it. As for the bedroom, and Carl 
Mentz, and the bundle he had brought from 
Mother Ishmael’s, he never once thought of 
them. If he had, he would have found 


THE OLD WOMAN. 


175 


himself minus the bundle ; for, crushed in 
the crowd, he had parted from it, and never 
known it. 

"Can he last the day out?” asked the 
captain of the doctor. 

" He may ; but I do not think he will.” 

What is best to do? ” 

The doctor, who had been examining the 
injured man more thoroughly, did not an- 
swer, but turning to Barney, who stood 
just behind him, said, "Are there no women 
in the house ? ” 

" Plenty, sir,” replied Barney ; " only 

theyVe gone out, now, to the fire. Moth- 
er’s gone, too.” 

" If I could only find some sensible woman 
to stay by him,” said the doctor, " some- 
body quick and handy — ” 

"I’m neither quick nor handy,” said a 
voice, taking the words right out of the doc- 
tor’s mouth; "but I’m in petticoats, as you 
see.” 

Everybody turned to the door, and saw 
an old woman, standing there, dressed in a 


176 THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 

black stuff gown. She had a cap upon 
her head, and she wore goggle spectacles. 
She appeared very decrepit. 

The doctor spoke out honestly — "You 
don’t look as though you were worth much ; 
but still, you’ll do to sit here beside the bed, 
and watch. And, sir,” addressing the cap- 
tain, " if you would leave one of your men 
to help her in case of need, it would be all 
that is necessary.” 

After receiving such gracious permission, 
the old woman moved towards the bed ; she 
had a distressing hobble, and it was with 
difficulty she managed to seat herself at her 
post. 

" H’m,” grumbled the doctor; "as lively 
as a mummy.” 

He glanced at her sharply as he mut- 
tered this ; but she sat there, at the head of 
the bed, quite composed. Her gray hair 
was combed low down over her forehead, 
and her blue goggles were so monstrous 
that very little of her face was visible — and 
that not plainly, for the lanterns only half 
lighted the room. 


/ 


THE OLD WOMAN. 1 77 

Barney also looked at the ancient gran- 
dam curiously. He had never seen her 
before. She certainly did not belong in the 
house. Where had she come from? and 
how queerly the goggles looked upon her ! 
He had never seen anybody wear a pair 
before. In fact, he had never seen but one 
pair in all his life, and that was old granny 
McQjiirk’s. She was his mother’s mother, 
who died before he was born, but whose 
false front, blue goggles, and short stump of 
a pipe, were preserved as sacred relics in a 
little paper band-box, that was kept in the 
bedroom, under the bed. 

Barney’s reverie was now broken in upon 
by the captain, who, addressing him, said, 
” I shall leave one of my men, and shall 
keep myself informed as to how matters 
stand here. As soon as possible you will 
be relieved, and all damages made up to 
you.” He then turned to his men, and 
asked, ” Which one of you will volunteer 
to stay ? ” 

There seemed to be a general demur. 


12 


178 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


No one appeared willing to perform this 
extra service, following, as it did, so closely 
upon their long stretch of night-work. 

Finally, one, who towered head and 
shoulders above the rest, said, ”Wal, Mr. 
Captain, I ain’t at all partial ; but, as no- 
body appears to be over-anxious. I’ll do it.” 

There was a murmur of approbation from 
the rest. ” We hung back on purpose, 
Sands,” said one. "We were sure of you.” 
And Mr. Sands, policeman, stepped for- 
ward ; and then came a general stir. The 
captain dismissed his band, and then he 
and the doctor took a last look at the 
injured man. He lay quiet now, drawing 
his breath in quick, short pants, like a tired 
dog. 

" He is sinking fast,” said the doctor ; and 
then the two went out. 

Through the curtainless windows now fell 
the gray dawn. It grew brighter and 
brighter. The old woman put her hand up 
to her face, and shaded it from the light, as 
though it was too strong for her. And it 


THE OLD WOMAN. 


179 


seemed to Barney, who was watching her 
steadily, that she, in her turn, was watching 
the policeman, who had stretched himself, 
full length, upon a dilapidated lounge near 
the door, and who, from time to time, 
rubbed his eyes in a very sleepy manner. 
Finally, Mr. Sands surrendered himself to 
the drowsy god altogether, and his snores 
quite overpowered the wounded man’s pant- 
ing breaths and the loud "tick, tick,” of the 
little cheap day-clock on the mantel. 

"Barney,” said the old woman. 

The boy started violently, for the low voice 
that spoke his name was altogether different 
from the shrill, cracked tones with which 
she had addressed the doctor. 

To Barney’s still greater amazement, the 
old woman took off her goggles and turned 
her face towards him. And now her gog- 
gles were off, she did not look so old. 
Indeed, though there was her gray hair to 
speak for her, she did not look old at all. 

"Don’t 3"Ou know me?” continued this 
strange old woman. "For Heaven’s sake, 


i8o 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


don’t stand there gaping any longer. My 
leg is burning up. Bring me some cold 
water and something for bandages.” 

Then, at last, Barney knew Carl. 

”You see,” explained that person, pass- 
ing his hand over his face, and twisting his 
gray hair all awry, ”the first thing after you 
was gone, I looked into my leg, and found 
it was only a flesh wound. I stripped up 
my handkerchief, and dressed it as well as I 
could, and found that I could hobble on it a 
very little. Feeling much encouraged, I 
was awaiting your return when I heard the 
commotion. At first, I thought the officers 
were after me ; but, by listening at the key- 
hole, I finally made out what the matter 
really was. Every second now seemed an 
hour, I was in such a fever of impatience 
for you. Still you did not come — ” 

”I forgot all about you,” interrupted 
Barney. 

"And the things I sent you for? ” 

"I must have lost them in the crowd.” 
Barney looked a little conscience-stricken, 


THE OLD WOMAN. l8l 

for this was the first time he had bethought 
himself of the bundle after Mother Ishmael 
had given it to him. 

"Well, if they’re gone, that’s the end of 
them,” remarked Carl. "This rig I’ve got 
on will do, with a few painted wrinkles.” 

Barney looked at the black stuff gown, 
and then he looked again ; and then he took 
in, one after the other, the rest of Carl’s 
accoutrements, and it dawned upon him 
that the dress and cap were his mother’s, 
and the gray hair and the goggles granny 
McQuirk’s, that they had put him so much 
in mind of in the first place. 

"You know the clothes, eh? Then, of 
course, you know where I got them. I 
thought myself in luck, I can tell you, 
when I found these,” pointing to the hair 
and goggles. "To put on my disguise was 
the work of a minute, and then I slipped 
into the entry. I was determined to get out 
of the house some way; though where to 
go, or what to do, when that was accom- 
plished, I hadn’t an idea. But walking was 
a terrible piece of work for me, and when I 


i 82 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


got along to the door, and caught the doc- 
tor’s words, it flashed across me that 1 
should be a hundred times safer if I put 
myself right under the noses of the police, 
where they wouldn’t think of my being, 
than if I tried, crippled as I was, to run 
away ; so — But you know the rest, and my 
leg is on the rampage again. Quick ! get 
some water, and then we’ll look into matters 
a little further.” 

Barney brought a tin basin, so brim-full 
that he slopped it over at every step. 

Never mind the bandages,” said Carl ; 
"I’ll make the handkerchief go again. He” 
— looking over to the policeman, who still 
lay soundly sleeping and loundly snoring — 
"may wake up any minute, and time is 
precious.” 

He washed out his wound, — an ugly- 
looking gash in the fleshy part of his leg, — = 
and bandaged it up, as though he was per- 
forming some sleight-of-hand trick. 

" I know how such things ought to go,” 
said he ; "I studied medicine for a while in 
Germany.” 


THE OLD WOMAN. 


183 


" rd like to know,” said Barney, where 
my mother and the rest are. I am going to 
hunt them up ; ” and he started towards the 
door. 

"Wait a minute; I must attend to my 
face. Haven’t you got anything in the 
house I can color it with?” 

" I’ve got some paints in my pocket ; ” and 
Barney dived down- and fished up about 
half a dozen dirty little junks of paint. 

Carl Mentz wet each piece in his mouth, 
and rubbed a very little of each upon the 
back of his hand. 

" I’ll make these work,” he said ; and, as 
Barney passed out, he stationed himself at 
^ the little ten-inch looking-glass, and com- 
menced operations. 

Mr. Sands slept heavily, the injured man 
did not move, and Carl was not interrupted. 
When he turned from the glass, his smooth, 
white-skinned face had grown yellow and 
wrinkled with age. Even with such poor 
materials, his make-up was a wonderfully 
good one. 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


CHAPTER XV. 

A DISCOVERY. 

B arney sought far and wide, and 
finally found his mother sitting upon a 
pile of boards with the children gathered 
about her, gazing at the smoking ruins like 
one stupefied, and looking like a distressed 
hen with a brood of chickens. 

The children cried out when they saw 
Barney, and clung to him like leeches ; but 
Mrs. O’Roach took no notice of him what- 
ever. 

”What are you staying here for?” asked 
Barney ; ” why don’t you go home? ” 

" O, is that you, Barney?” said his 
mother, in a bewildered sort of way. "You 
didn’t come home to supper, and I kept the 
porridge on the stove till the house burned 
down, and then I brought it along with^me, 
in the wash-boiler.” 


A DISCOVERY. 


i8s 


She cast her eyes, as she spoke, upon a 
large bundle, done up in an old quilt, that 
lay at her feet. 

"But the house isn’t burnt down, at all. 
See, there’s not a sowl left around here, but 
yesilf. Ivery one has gone home. It’s 
broad daylight. Come, now, let’s us be 
startin’.” 

"I tied it up in a comfortable,” went on 
his mother, in the same helplessly bewil- 
dered tone, with her eyes still fixed upon 
the bundle. 

"O, nivir mind that, but come home,” 
said Barney. 

"Yes, mother, come home,” cried all the 
little CyRoaches ; and one pulled at her 
dress, and another at her apron, and another 
at her sleeve. 

And, thus fairly forced upon her feet, she 
let the children drag her off ; while Barney, 
shouldering the boiler, placed himself in 
position alongside. Before they reached 
home, Barney had accounted for his non- 
appearance the night before, and prepared 


1 86 THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 

her for what awaited her at home. But, in 
his recital, he carefully evaded all mention 
of Carl Mentz. Perhaps he considered the 
time too short to do justice to the subject ; 
or, more likely still, he thought it best not to 
upset his mother’s reason completely ; her 
wits seemed scattered to the four winds 
already. 

When she reached the house, she looked 
ready to faint. She clung to the balusters 
on her way up stairs, and every step for- 
ward was a heavier drag. 

” What is a man burned to a cinder good 
for? ’’said she. ”What does he look like 
on my quilt? Sixty-four different squares 
of policemen, and a calico on guard.” 

Thus, growing more and more incohe- 
rent, she reached the door of her room, and 
when Barney turned the knob and entered, 
she stood hovering -upon the threshold, not 
daring to follow ; not daring, at first, even 
to lift her eyes. 

It was a busy scene that was going on 
inside. Mr. Sands, the policeman, wide 


A DISCOVERY. 


187 


awake now, was sitting flat on the floor by 
the bed, grating potatoes into a tin hand- 
basin ; while the old woman was tearing 
cloth into strips, spreading the pieces 
thickly with the gratings, and laying them 
on the injured man’s burns, swathing and 
bandaging him up from head to foot. 

Carl raised his eyes when the door 
opened, and saw Mrs. O’Roach, who, look- 
ing up in her turn, saw Carl. 

” It’s granny McQiiirk ! ” she cried, after 
a spasmodic start, her knees knocking to- 
gether. "After all the masses I’ve paid for 
ye sowl ! O, granny, darlint, what trou- 
bles ye?” 

" The draught from that door,” said granny 
McQuirk’s ghost. "Come in, or go out, 
one or the other, and shut it ! ” 

A polite way of treating the lady of the 
house; but the day had turned breezy, and 
Carl just then was very much in earnest. 

"Shure an’ I will, an’ no hard falings. 
I’m that relaved to find ye’re no granny 
McQuirk. I remimber well the voice of 


i88 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


her. It’s no gruff and mannish, like yer 
own ; ” and Mrs. O’Roach entered with her 
brood. 

Carl had carelessly spoken in his natural 
tones. He glanced at Mr. Sands, but he 
was devoted, body and soul, to his potatoes. 

"How goes it?” said that unsuspicious 
individual, with his eyes in the hand-basin, 
grating away for dear life ; " gettin’ ahead 
any, eh?” 

"Hist, now ! ” said Carl in a whisper, and 
in the same breath there came a long, shiv- 
ering sigh and an inarticulate murmur. 

" It’s a sure case of bringing the dead to 
life again,” exclaimed the policeman, sus- 
pending operations in his amazement. 

" He’s saying something ; ” and Carl bent 
lower and lower, till his ear touched the 
injured man’s mouth. "It’s water, I believe. 
Barney, bring him some.” 

The water was brought, and given to 
him. He drank it, and seemed revived ; 
but it was not what he had asked for. His 
lips still worked and moved over the same 


A DISCOVERY. 189 

word. Carl, however, could not make it 
out, nor Barney, nor Mrs. O’Roach. 

” There’s no use of my trying,” said Mr. 
Sands ; ” I always shoot wider of the mark 
than any one else.” 

Just then there came a knock at the door. 
Barney went and opened it. It was his 
friend Philip Sands. 

Philip’s eyes opened wide at sight of Bar- 
ney " You don’t say,” began he, "that they 
brought the man that was hurt here ? 
Where’s my father?” He stepped into the 
room as he spoke. 

"Here I am, Phil, my boy,” called Mr. 
Sands, softly, recognizing his son’s voice. 

Then it was Barney’s turn to open his 
eyes. " That ain’t your father ! ” he ex- 
claimed to Philip. 

Philip nodded, and hobbled with his 
crutch over towards his father. " Softly, 
softly, sonny,” cautioned Mr. Sands ; 
" there’s a cricketal case on hand.” 

"What you doing, anyhow?” asked 
" sonny,” looking down at him curiously. 


190 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


" Fm grating taters. The old woman said 
it was good as anything to poultice burns 
with ; so we went to work, and it’s eased the 
poor fellow there wonderfully. The old 
woman has got vim, I tell you, though she 
don’t look like it. Why, she’s just set two 
bones — she said his leg was broke in two 
places — as handy as any one I ever see.” 

The old woman was supposed not to hear 
this, being busy at the time applying ban- 
dages, with her back turned to the speaker. 

Philip stood still a moment, and looked at 
the man lying upon the bed. He could not 
see his face for the bandages ; but he saw 
his lips move, and heard the faint, indistinct 
murmur he made. 

"What is he saying? ” he asked. 

" There, now, if anybody can make it 
out, I know Phil can,” said his father. 
"We have all given it up ; but you go and 
listen, and see if you can tell.” 

So Philip went to the bed, and bent down 
his ear to the poor mouth, working so des- 
perately over that one word that nobody 
could make out. 


A DISCOVERY. 


I9I 

”It isn’t water — is it?” he asked of the 
council of four, drawn up on the other side 
of the bedj awaiting his verdict. 

The council shook its head. 

Philip bent down his ear again. "If it 
isn’t water, it’s something like it,” said he, 
looking up a second time. "It’s 'wutter,’ 
* wutzer.’ ” Still the man’s mouth kept 
working — " wutzel ; ” then the mouth 
stopped, and a sigh as of relief was 
breathed through the parted lips. 

"Wutzel!” was the low-voiced chorus; 
"what does that mean? ’ 

" It sounds like some Dutch name,” said 
Philip. " Perhaps it is his name ; perhaps 
it’s the name of some one he wants to see ; 
perhaps — ” He hesitated, stopped short, 
and a wild idea shot through his brain. 

Why might not this man, who was taken 
from the ruins of No. ii, who was burned 
beyond all recognition, — these facts he had 
learned at the police-station, where he had 
gone in the first place in search of his 
father, — why might not this man be Ary’s 
father, and the word he was trying to say. 


192 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


the name of his master, Mr. Wurtzel? 
What more natural? 

" Ah ! ” remarked Carl, watching his 
patient closely, and noting how quiet he 
lay, " ^ wutzel,’ whatever that may mean, is 
the word.” 

ril bet on Phil, any day,” muttered Mr. 
Sands, with an approving nod towards his 
son. 

The captain, accompanied by one of the 
police, now appeared. 

” Hasn’t he dropped off yet?” was his 
first remark ; and then, ” Who put on all 
these bandages?” 

” I, yer honor,” answered Carl. " It was 
too hard to sit beside him, and see him suf- 
fering.” 

”She must be the seventh son of the 
seventh son, if she is in petticoats,” said Mr. 
Sands. ” I shouldn’t wonder if the man 
lived, after all.” 

” You haven’t found out who he is? ” 

There was a little silence, and then Philip 
said nervously, ” I think I know him.” 

"There’s nothing on him to reckon by,” 


A DISCOVERY. 


193 


interposed Carl, ” unless it’s his eyes. One 
looks as though it might have been lost 
before.” 

" I vum ! ” exclaimed Mr. Sands, I do 
believe it’s Burt Stoddard.” 

A change passed over Philip’s face as his 
father spoke that name. He remembered 
it, and where and when he had heard it. 
He was roused from his reverie by the chief, 
who addressed him, saying, ”Who do you 
think he is ? ” 

" I’ve changed my mind since I spoke 
before,” answered Philip, " and I think it is 
Burt Stoddard, too.” 

" How came you to know anything about 
him ? ” said his father, looking astonished. 

Without replying to this, Philip turned to 
the captain, to whom he was well known. 
" I should like to speak to you alone, Mr. 
Harrison,” said he ; "I have something to 
tell about him.” 

The bedroom door stood open. ” Come 
in here,” said the captain ; and Philip fol- 
lowed him in and shut the door. 


13 


194 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

BURT STODDARD. 

P hilip and the chief were closeted to- 
gether a full hour, during which time 
they were engaged in the deepest conversa- 
tion. 

Finally, after Philip had unburdened him- 
self completely, Mr. Harrison sat for a few 
minutes in silence, with his hand shading 
his face, as if lost in thought. 

Then he said, "'Well, Philip, this may 
amount to something, and it may not. Burt 
Stoddard is a notorious name in the police 
annals. But, somehow, though he has done 
enough to hang him twice over, he has 
always managed to evade justice. Indeed, 
we have had no clew to him for some years 
past. If this man” — motioning with his head 
towards the other room — "is he, and you can 


BURT STODDARD. 


19s 


prove it, and after that can prove — mind, 
now, imagination goes for nothing — that 
he committed the robbery at Thornewood, 
then you have gained the reward.” 

” But I can’t prove it, and I know it ! ” 
exclaimed Philip. ” I don’t see as I can do 
anything.” 

”You can arrest Mr. Schnapps on sus- 
picion.” 

" But couldn’t he deny everything I said ? ” 

"Certainly; and then you should bring 
forward your witnesses.” 

"Yes, there it is again. Just what I can’t 
do. My sprained foot spoiled everything. 
If it hadn’t been for that. I’d have tripped 
him up by this time.” 

" What puzzles me is the state in which 
Mr. Schnapps was found after the robbery. 
If he was a party to it, why was he gagged, 
and so barbarously, too? He came very 
near dying, if I remember correctly.” 

"Yes, there was no sham about that, for 
my aunt Rhody nursed him, and she said it 
was a miracle he lived.” 


196 THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 

"That would be a strong card to play 
against your accusation.” 

" But this is the way of it. You see the 
robbers must have had a fight among them- 
selves.” 

"Well, well ; ” and the chief rose and but- 
toned his coat. " It’s a strange affair, and I 
will think it over carefully, and see what 
is best to be done. If the man out there is 
Stoddard, he may, now he is so surely 
caught, throw some light upon the subject ; 
that is, if he lives.” 

"And he will live,” cried Philip, "just as 
Mr. Schnapps did. It seems, somehow, as 
if those two couldn’t die till everything has 
been found out.” 

Plis companion smiled slightly at Philip’s 
earnestness. " It may be so,” he answered ; 
and then the secret session ended, and they 
passed out into the next room, where they 
were received' with looks of curiosity. 

Mr. Sands, especially, had on a mammoth 
stare, and stretched out his neck towards 
Philip like a giraffe, and behind the chief’s 


BURT STODDARD. 


197 


back went through a series of most startling 
nods, and winks, and beckonings, of which, 
however, Philip took not the least notice. 
He was looking intently at the injured man, 
whom now he believed to be Burt Stoddard, 
whom he had actually seen but once, but 
who was firmly established in his mind as 
one of the thieves concerned in the great 
Wurtzel robbery case. 

” About the same — is he?” inquired the 
captain of Carl. 

"Only quieter. He’s never stirred once 
while you were out of the room.” 

" See ! ” exclaimed Philip, " he is talking 
again.” 

There was a dead silence. Everybody 
was listening to the faint gurgling sound 
that came with such difficulty. 

" He says, ' Go,’ ” said Philip ; and again, 
at his interpretation, the man sighed, as with 
relief, and closed his lips quietly. 

" Do you not see,” cried Philip, excitedly, 
"what he means? He wants some one to 
go for Mr. Wurtzel. He thinks he is not 


IpS THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 

going to live, and he wants to confess, and 
ease his conscience, before he dies. It’s as 
plain as day to me.” 

” You are young, yet, Philip,” remarked 
the chief, rather incredulously, "and have 
a lively imagination ; ” and then, noticing that 
Philip’s dignity was touched, he added, "but 
there are facts in the case that need looking 
up. I’ll admit ; and, as soon as this man is 
able to talk, — for if he has not the power 
of speech, what is anybody’s presence worth 
to him — we will send for this Mr. Wurtzel, 
and have this matter settled to your satisfac- 
tion.” 

" But perhaps it is only necessary for Mr. 
Wurtzel to see him.” 

" Nothing would be gained by that. He 
could not recognize him.” 

"But what if he dies?” persisted Philip. 

" Then we shall look into the affair our- 
selves ; perhaps I shall make up my mind 
to it, anyway ; ” and with this Philip was 
obliged to be satisfied. 

" I think,” said the chief, " this man had 


BURT STODDARD, 


199 


better go to the hospital.” Then he turned 
to the policeman who had accompanied 
him. ” Green, you can go, now, and tell 
them to send down at once.” 

Mr. Green nodded, and departed on his 
errand.^ 

” Come, Phil,” spoke up Mr. Sands, with 
a yawn that laid bare every tooth in his 
head, "Fve been waiting for you this hour 
or more ; ain’t you ready to travel yet ? ” 

Coming,” responded Philip, rather re- 
luctantly, for he and Barney were standing 
together, — a little aside from the rest, — con- 
versing in an undertone. Barney was re- 
lating his exploits of the night, and had just 
arrived to where Carl Mentz had desired to 
die, and had so urgently requested to be 
carried to the wharf ; he had just reached 
this interesting point, when Mr. Sands in- 
terfered. 

"Never mind,” said Philip; "you can tell 
me the rest some other time.” 

" All right,” replied Barney ; " but here 
— wait till I give you your letter.” 


200 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


He plunged his hand into his pocket. 
"It’s in t’other side,” he remarked; but his 
hand came up empty again, after his second 
plunge, and a blank dismay overspread his 
face. 

"Haven’t you got it?” asked Philip. 

Barney turned his pockets inside out. 
" I’ve lost it,” said he ; " but I don’t know 
how. It couldn’t have gone through this 
little hole,” holding it up to view. The hole 
was about as large as a pin’s head. 

"Very likely Ary did take it, after all,” 
said Philip. 

" I don’t see when,” began Barney. 

Philip felt his father’s hand upon his 
shoulder. " I’m going, Phil,” he said. 

" And I am going, too ; ” and he swung 
himself around on his crutch, as if the letter 
was of very little account anyway, — and so 
it was now, — and accompanied his father 
and Mr. Harrison, who departed at the same 
time. 

Mr. Sands, being the last to pass out, shut 
the door behind him ; but the lock sprang 


BUkT STODDARD. 


201 


back and the door swung open again, and a 
voice on the landing was heard saying, 
grandly, ” Gentlemen, you see me again.” 

"Ah! the doctor,” said Mr. Harrison. 
" Good morning I Happy to see you.” 

" Thank you, sir,” replied the doctor. 
"How is the poor fellow now? Is he alive? 
Business bringing me near here, I felt like 
calling in.” 

" Step right along. He is alive still, and 
seemingly better. I will excuse myself from 
accompanying you, being pressed for time, 
and greatly hurried — ” 

"Certainly, certainly, sir; no apologies 
are necessary,” and immediately upon this 
the grandiose doctor — that had stepped 
from the crowd the night before, and pro- 
nounced upon Burt Stoddard — entered. 

He stood over the bed looking down at the 
patient with wonder. " He breathes regular- 
ly ; his pulse is steady,” he said. "Strange ! 
astonishing I Yes, I think he will get well. 
These bandages, ma’am,” — he addressed 
himself to Carl in particular now, — "are 


202 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


arranged skilfully. Are there any bones 
broken?” 

” Two,” answered Carl, laconically. 

" Where ? ” exclaimed the doctor, pushing 
the sleeves of his coat half way up his arm. 
”Tell me, so that I can set them. O, how 
grand to be a doctor I How glorious ” — here 
he rumpled up his hair in the most approved 
style — ”to raise up a shattered frame like 
this into a man again ! To a true disciple 
of ^sculapius such reward is all he asks 
for. And now for the compound fractures. 
Where are they ? ” 

"They are set.” 

" Whew ! ” The doctor came down from 
his high horse. "Who set them? ” 

j » 

"You!” The doctor examined the ban- 
dage around one of the broken bones. He 
partly undid it. "Yes, it’s all right,” he 
muttered ; " no one could have done it bet- 
ter.” 

Carl winced under the side glance he 
gave him. " And what is to be done with 


BURT STODDARD. 


203 


this man, ma’am?” he asked, emphasizing 
the last word with a smile. 

Before Carl could answer, there was a 
scuffling of feet in the entry. The men 
from the hospital had come with a stretcher. 
They laid the hurt man carefully upon it. 
He groaned when they touched him, and 
then sank into quiet again. Carl made him- 
self as useful as possible, but all the time he 
felt the doctor’s eye upon him. At length 
the doctor found a chance to speak to him. 

"Young man,” said he, — "there, don’t start 
so ; nobody else guesses it, — I presume you 
are something in a strait, and I am too, just 
now, for the want of an assistant. Can’t we 
strike a bargain, and no questions asked.” 

Before the doctor was half through, Carl 
had quite recovered himself. " I am in a 
strait,” he answered; "but how can I get 
away in this rig? Besides, I can’t walk far.” 

" Ahem ! ” the doctor raised his voice. 
"Yes’m, I am perfectly willing to recom- 
mend you. You have certainly been skilful 
in this case. I don’t know of any place 


204 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


just at present. Stop ! Let me think. I do 
know of one place, and I am going past it 
now on my way home. My gig is at the 
door. If you can come with me, I will 
carry you there now.” 

Burt Stoddard — if indeed it was he — 
had been placed upon the stretcher, and was 
being carried out. Carl and the doctor 
followed immediately behind, and Mrs. 
O’Roach heaved a sigh of relief to find 
herself once more alone with her own. As 
for Barney, he was already out on the land- 
ing, anxious to watch the end of the pro- 
ceedings. 

He started with surprise at sight of Carl, 
who whispered to him, — as he hobbled 
past, — ” I have left you my watch. I shall 
not forget you.” 


DOCTOR TOOLU. 


205 


CHAPTER XVII. 

DOCTOR TOOLU. 

T he doctor’s mare was a good roadster. 

She had made her mile inside of three 
minutes, and now she drew up before the 
doctor’s door in less than an hour from the 
time of starting. It seemed to Carl, who 
was suffering the most excruciating pain 
with his leg, that they had come a long 
way ; but as the doctor alighted and turned 
to assist him, he said, We have come ten 
miles to a hair. Thornewood is just that 
distance from the city.” 

While they had been riding Carl had 
been thinking. He had never had much 
practice in this sort of thing. He was one of 
the "leap before you think ” folks ; but then it 
had never come home to him quite so strong 
before. He was obliged to think now, and 


2o6 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


not only to think, but to act. He asked 
himself, in the first place, — if he had done 
well in jumping so at the doctor’s offer ; but, 
then, he asked himself again, " What else 
could I do? If it was not for being stabbed, 
I might have done different. I am not sure 
that Barney’s mother would have kept me. 
Besides, I am ten miles farther away from 
danger, and that is something. I can be 
very useful to the doctor, who must be in a 
terrible strait, I should think, to take an 
assistant in such a hap-hazard way.” 

He glanced at the doctor sidewise. He 
had a full forehead, a large nose, and a 
prominent chin. His attention seemed be- 
stowed altogether upon his reins and his 
flying steed. Suddenly, though, after he 
had given Carl time for a good look, he 
turned sharp upon him. 

” Young man,” said he, "you have been 
gazing at me full two minutes. I hope you 
are not inquisitive.” 

Carl stammered something, he hardly 
knew what, he was so taken b}' surprise. 


DOCTOR TOOLU. 


207 


” Inquisitiveness I despise,” pursued the 
doctor. "This speculating upon another’s 
thoughts and little peculiarities is unworthy 
the dignity of man. My late assistant was 
inquisitive, and I dismissed him;” and then 
he looked at Carl as Blue Beard must have 
looked at his wife Fatima when he bade her 
not unlock the secret chamber. 

"Well,” thought Carl, "I shall know 
what to expect if I’m inquisitive. If the 
doctor only practises what he preaches, I 
guess I can manage, after all.” 

Not another word was spoken between 
the two till their ride’s end. And then, as 
Carl passed in at the side door that opened 
immediately into the doctor’s study, he saw 
" Dr. Toolu,” printed in black on a ground 
glass panel. He had not known his name 
till now. The doctor was ignorant of his 
still. 

" Good, comfortable quarters,” thought 
Carl, looking around as he sat awaiting the 
doctor in his study. The fire glowed in the 
grate, a tortoise-shell cat lay with her nose 


2o8 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


on the fender, the carpet was soft and heavy, 
and the easy-chairs cushioned with velvet. 

More and more Carl wondered at the 
doctor’s strange method of picking up an 
assistant. ” He does not ask me,” he said, 
” where I came from, nor who I anv nor 
what this disguise means-. He only tells me 
not to be inquisitive.” 

The warmth from the fire made him 

I 

drowsy, and he sank into a doze, from 
which he was roused by the opening of the 
door. It was the doctor who entered. 
was in hopes,” said he, rubbing his hands 
jovially together, ”to find time for a little 
chat with you. But one of my patients has 
had a poor turn, and has sent for me post- 
haste ; now, what’s to be done with you 
during my absence ? ” 

"If I could only go to bed,” replied Carl, 
yawning. 

"Just the thing,” exclaimed the doctor; 
" and no fear of anybody’s seeing you in 
that rig. Here, step right in here,” — 
throwing open a door that led from the 
study — "this is my sleeping-room.” 


DOCTOR TOOLU. 


209 


Carl threw himself upon the bed, and his 
eyes closed as though there were weights 
on them. He did not know when the doc- 
tor went out. He did not hear the door 
shut, nor the key turn in the lock. He 
slept as heavily as a log. For a time, at 
least, his troubles, and pain, and dangers 
were over. 

He awoke with a start. The doctor was 
standing over him. " How long have I been 
asleep? an hour?” he asked. 

” Yes, and five more,” was the answer. 
" How do you feel now ? ” 

” Better.” 

" Can you get up and dress yourself? ” 

Carl looked around as if wondering what 
there was to dress himself in. On a chair, 
beside the bed, lay a suit of clothes. 

" I think they will fit you,” said Dr. 
Toolu. ” I found them among some of mine 
that were packed away.” 

The doctor held a newspaper in his hand. 
It was unfolded, as though he had just been 
reading it. After Carl had dressed himself 

14 


210 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


in the clothes, he handed him the paper, 
open and doubled down to a certain para- 
graph. 

Carl read, " A Dishonest Clerk ; ” and 
under this heading of capitals, "The non- 
appearance of one of the clerks (named 
Carl Mentz) on his accustomed stool, at the 
banking-house of Spencer & Ludgate, led to 
an examination of the safe ; and a deficit of 
ten thousand dollars in gold was discovered. 
The clerk attended to the German business 
of the house. He is of German extraction, 
and speaks the language fluently. No clew 
has as yet been found by which to trace 
him. The police force all over the state 
are on the lookout. See personal descrip- 
tion next page.” 

Carl turned to the next page, as directed, 
and read the description ; " One hundred 
dollars’ reward for the apprehension of Carl 
Mentz, German, about twenty years old, 
light hair and eyes, tall and slight built. 
Any one that can give any information of 
the same will receive the above reward by 
calling at the office of the chief of police.” 


DOCTOR TOOLU. 


2II 


The paper dropped from Carl’s hand. 
^'Ruined, disgraced, hunted down, trapped.” 
He ground the words fiercely through his 
shut teeth, without lifting his eyes. 

”My friend, do you think I want the hun- 
dred dollars ? ” said the doctor, after a long 
pause. 

Something in the tone made Carl look up. 

What do you want, then? ” 

”An assistant that is under my thumb,” 
replied the doctor, bringing down the end 
of his thumb very forcibly upon Carl’s 
shoulder. 

Carl was sitting directly in front of a 
large mirror. By looking, forward he had 
a full-length view of the doctor. He could 
see the hard glitter of his eyes. " The old 
villain ! ” he muttered. 

"What do you say? Will you try a 
felon’s cell?” 

"You may use me as you please,” cried 
Carl, recklessly. " I will sell myself, body 
and soul, to you ; only keep me from that.” 

" Good. I am not a harsh master. I 


212 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


only ask you not to he inquisitive. Come 
now — it will not do for you to fit so closely 
that ” personal ” in the paper. 

So Carl went through another metamor- 
phosis under the doctor’s hands. His long, 
light hair was cut close and colored black ; 
his skin was stained ; and he was provided 
with a pair of crutches, which enabled him 
to walk with ease, and which took off from 
his real height. Nobody would have 
dreamed he was the Carl Mentz advertised. 
” You need not be afraid of showing your- 
self,” said the doctor. " Your disguise is 
good, and nobody would think of looking 
for you here. I should be willing to risk 
myself anywhere, if I were you.” - And so 
Carl was duly installed as Dr. Toolu’s 
assistant. 

As for his name, the doctor had said, ” I 
will call you Tom. It is short and to the 
point.” And Tom it was. 

" Now, Tom,” — the doctor smiled beam- 
ingly, — ”ril set you to work making pills 
and medicines.” 


DOCTOR TOOLU. 


213 


” But I’m not a doctor. I left college 
before I was anywhere near my degree.” 

” Tut, tut ! what’s that to do with it?” said 
the doctor, leading his new assistant into his 
little work-room. 

There were shelves all around, filled with 
vials and bottles. There were mixing-bowls 
and all kinds of glasses, that held from a 
quarter of a gill upwards. There were 
glass tubes, and glass tunnels, and tier on 
tier of little drawers — all Latin labelled. 
There was a huge mortar and pestle in one 
corner. And there was a table and a chair. 
The room was lighted from the ceiling. 

There was a large sheet of white paper 
spread out upon the table, and a little heap 
of what looked like silver dust on one side. 
" Tom,” exclaimed Dr. Toolu, cheerily, tak- 
ing hold of the sheet of paper, " all this is 
to be made up into pills. Reduce the sub- 
stance first to a pulp, then roll out the pills 
and silver-coat them. Here is enough 
material to make a quart. And this,” tak- 
ing down a gallon bottle, you may fill with 


214 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


medicine. A spoonful of sugar to a half a 
pint of water makes a pleasant drink, and 
one much more cooling to the system than 
the old-fashioned doses of calomel and castor 
oil. I will leave you now. In an hour’s 
time I shall be back, and then you can 
carry out what medicines you have made.” 

”He’s a regular old sea-serpent,” solilo- 
quized Carl ; ” but if his medicines do no 
good, they’ll do no harm ; so here goes ; first 
for the pills. ' Reduce the paper to a pulp,’ 
that’s what he said. I wonder if he expects 
me to chew it.” 

But though he ran on in this way, and 
tried to keep his spirits up, it would not do. 
As he soaked the paper in water and 
scraped it into pulp, the hot tears rose in his 
eyes, and by the time he got to rolling his 
pills, they splashed down his cheeks like a 
summer shower. What was he but a boy, 
after all? 

”0,” he said to himself in bitter re- 
proach, "why was I so weak as to be led 
into temptation? If I had only resisted the 


DOCTOR TOOLU. 


215 


first time. But no, I let myself be per- 
suaded ; and then I went again, and again, 
and again, till the passion for gambling 
filled my whole soul ; till I had staked 
everything I had, and lost; till, in an evil 
moment, over-persuaded, I borrowed ; yes, 
that’s what I called it then ; for, fool that I 
was, I thought to pay it back. I borrowed 
ten thousand dollars from the safe, and, los- 
ing that, lost everything.” 

His head drooped upon his breast, his 
fingers forgot for a moment to roll the silver- 
coated pills. 

” So young,” he murmured, ” and so mis- 
erable ! What a life is before me ! I must 
fill a felon’s cell, or stay here, bond slave to 
a swindler, a cheat, a rascal. O Heavens ! 
is there no chance of anything else? ” 

There was one loophole of escape — just 
one ; but that was so small that he hardly 
dared to think of it. He had an uncle ; 
where, he did not know ; farther than that 
he was in the same country, whom his father, 
with his last breath, had bade him seek. 


2i6 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


In accordance with his father^s wishes, he 
had come to America, — this was four or 
five years ago, — and commenced his search 
zealously. It was not successful, as might 
have been expected ; since his father, who 
died very suddenly, left behind him no 
papers or writings of any kind that threw 
any light upon the subject. Getting weary 
of a wild-goose chase that might in the end 
amount to nothing, — for his father, or- 
phaned when he was a baby, had run away 
from those who took care of him when 
young, and since that time had never once 
heard from home, — he settled himself into 
the first occupation that presented, and, after 
changing several times for the better, had 
finally obtained the situation of foreign clerk 
with Spencer & Ludgate, bankers — a sit- 
uation he was well fitted for, being able to 
speak and write fluently, both German and 
English. 

He had long ago given up all idea of 
finding his uncle; and now, of course, it 
seemed more improbable than ever. But 


DOCTOR TOOLU. 


217 


still Carl could not help thinking how nice 
it would be if this unknown uncle should 
suddenly pop upon him, pay up the ten 
thousand dollars, and give him the chance 
to try again. If he only had this one 
chance more, how exemplary his whole life 
should be ! This is the way everybody 
thinks that has made a — we’ll speak of it 
as pleasantly as possible — a mistake; after 
the mistake is made, mind you. And how 
many, if they had the chance over again, 
would not do exactly the same or worse ? I 
do not say Carl would. 

The doctor returned at the end of the 
hour. And then, with Carl’s assistance, he 
put up the pills and the sugared water in the 
tiny bottles that homoeopathists use, and 
pasted on the labels. 

” And now, before we have supper,” said 
the doctor, ”we will go and leave some 
of these medicines. They are needed at 
once.” 

"Do you mean for me to go?” asked Carl, 
looking disturbed. 


2i8 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


” Why not ? It will be part of your busi- 
ness every day to carry out medicines. I 
shall send you alone as soon as you know 
the way round.” 

So Carl accompanied the doctor, who 
drove to as many as a dozen different 
places. At every place Carl had to alight 
and leave some medicine. 

It would seem that the doctor had a large 
practice. Every one he met knew him. 
The gentlemen were more than cordial, the 
ladies smiled their sweetest, and the children 
looked up at him brightly. A universal 
favorite, to all appearance, was Dr. Toolu. 

” I hope, Tom,” said the doctor, "that you 
haven’t made any mistakes in giving out the 
bottles. It might prove fatal, you know.” 
He chuckled as he said this, and suddenly 
reined in his horse. "I came near going 
past,” he said ; and, turning his horse’s 
head, they drove swiftly up a beautiful ave- 
nue shaded on either side with trees, and 
in a few minutes came in sight of a house. 
A very large and splendid house it was. 


DOCTOR TOOLU. 


219 


” What a beautiful place this must be ! ” 
exclaimed Carl, looking around as well as 
he was able ; for twilight had come on, and 
everything was indistinct. 

” Our nabob, Mr. Wurtzel, lives here,” 
responded the doctor. '^He was the one 
who sent for me in such a hurry this morn- 
ing. He is very low. He will not live 
through the night.” By this time they had 
reached the house. The light from a win- 
dow shone suddenly upon the doctor’s face. 
It was overspread with a broad smile. 

It struck Carl as strange. ” And this 
morning,” he said, suddenly thinking of it, 
" he seemed so pleased this morning when 
he was sent for ! I shouldn’t think the loss 
of a good patient would please him so.” 

" Here you are,” said the doctor. "Jump 
out, and ring the bell.” 

Nobody, however, obeyed Carl’s sum- 
mons. 

" Try the door. Perhaps it is unlocked.” 

" It is.” 

" Then run right up to the room. There*s 


220 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


the stairs ahead of you ; the first door on 
your right.” 

It was rather tedious to go up the long 
flight of stairs, but his crutch made no 
sound on the carpet. The door on the right 
stood open. He knocked softly, and then, 
after waiting a few minutes, entered. There 
was nobody here, either, but the sick man. 
Carl could just see his profile as he lay on 
the pillow. A little table, filled with glasses 
and all the paraphernalia of the sick room, 
stood at the foot of the bed ; but instead of 
placing his medicine there and departing, 
impelled by a curiosity he could not account 
for, Carl passed around the bed, close up to 
the patient, and looked him square in the 
face. He was asleep ; at least, his eyes 
were closed. He was terribly white and 
wan, and his lips were blue. Bending over 
him, Carl felt of his pulse, and with the 
palm of his hand touched his skin in two or 
three places. 

”And Dr. Toolu says he will die to- 
night,” he murmured. 


THE GAME FINISHED. 


221 


CHAPTER XVIIL 

THE GAME FINISHED. 

H ardly had Carl left Mr. Wurtzel’s 
room when Mr. Schnapps entered it 
by another door. He was pale and hag- 
gard ; his eyes were bloodshot, his dress dis- 
ordered. Something terrible had happened, 
or was happening, or was going to happen, 
surely. To all connected with the house- 
hold his appearance needed no explanation. 
Indeed, every one was too dumbfounded, too 
full of their own utter and sudden consterna- 
tion, to be very observing of others. Besides, 
what was more proper and becoming than 
this passionate grief in one who mourned 
the death of a kind master and the dearest 
and most generous of friends combined? 
Not that Mr. Wurtzel was dead yet ; but Dr. 
Toolu — after his morning visit — had an- 
nounced him as " failing fast,” and ” impos- 
sible to last more than a day or two.” 


222 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


Nobody had been prepared for this. If 
his ultimate recovery was not expected, nei- 
ther was he considered as dangerous. The 
whole household were stunned with the 
sudden shock, with the exception of Mr. 
Schnapps. He seemed wild. It was only 
a week before that five physicians, includ- 
ing Dr. Toolu, had held a consultation upon 
the case. 

Says number one, ''The vital system 
seems to lie almost dormant. It must be 
roused; it must be roused (with emphasis 
the second time), or it will all run out, sir.” 

"There’s no disease, sir,” from number 
two, " as I see. But, as brother Patch just 
remarked, if it isn’t stopped, there’ll be an 
end to it some time or other.” 

And from number three, " I agree entirely 
with all that has been said. I would recom- 
mend also a diet of under-done beefsteak 
and old port. That will start up the springs 
of action, if anything.” 

Number four averred that his sentiments 
had been expressed by the rest. He also 
added that "such cases were getting quite 


THE GAME FINISHED. 


223 


common. Nothing dangerous in the pres- 
ent case as yet, but it was a most tedious 
form of sickness, and might turn either way 
any time. A charming prospect ! ” 

This last was addressed to the view, as 
seen from the window. Then the five pro- 
fessionals took a short stroll through the 
grounds, and departed. 

After the consultation, Mr. Wurtzel seemed 
about the same, neither better nor worse. He 
sat up and lay down at short intervals ; was 
rather fretful and capricious, as invalids are 
'apt to be, and so fond of his valet, that he 
could hardly bear him from his sight, night 
or day. It was William this, and William 
that, William here, and William there. He 
would take nothing from anybody else. 
Poor old man (he was near sixty), all 
his kinsfolk — and he had none very near 
or dear — were distant from him, and in 
his weakness he must cling to somebody. 
Sometimes, though, he would speak of his 
brother, — the only one he had ever had, — 
who, when still a lad, impatient under his 
guardian’s control, had run away, and gone, 


224 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


no one knew whither. Neither had any tid- 
ings come from him since. And day after 
day Mr. Wurtzel would recall his boyhood’s 
companion, talk over the games and pastimes 
they had engaged in together, wonder if 
he were indeed dead, or, if living, why he 
had never sent word to him. 

So the time had passed, until, as sudden 
as the snap of a pistol in the lock, his death- 
warrant had been pronounced. A hush fell 
upon the whole house. A dead stillness 
was everywhere — up in the sick room, 
where the dying man lay in a stupor as 
motionless as death itself, and below, among 
the servants, gliding about speechless and 
sad. One by one they had crept in and 
taken tearful leave of the silent form so un- 
conscious of their presence. 

Now it was night. And all sat sleepless, 
watching and waiting for the unwelcome 
guest, which still delayed his coming. 

In the room adjoining Mr. WurtzeFs were 
those servants who had been with him long- 
est ; but in the room with him, in his imme- 
diate presence, there was but one — one 


THE GAME FINISHED. 


225 


in whom unbounded confidence had been 
placed ; who had been trusted as a brother. 
There he sat — the valet — by his master’s 
bedside ; so near that his outstretched hand 
could easily grasp the white, wasted one 
lying so nervelessly upon the counterpane ; 
so near that each heavily-drawn breath 
fanned his cheek. 

The tiny hands of the little marble clock 
on the mantle went round, and round, and 
round, and there was no change in the sick 
room. Still Mr. Wurtzel slept heavily, 
and the valet sat in the same place staring 
at him with burning, wide-open eyes. But 
down stairs, as the time neared midnight, 
the servants, one by one, grew drowsy in 
spite of all their efforts, and heads went 
bobbing about like ships in a heavy sea, and 
finally, when the hands of the clock pointed 
to twelve, not even one of those watching in 
the little ante-room adjoining Mr. Wurtzel’s, 
but was soundly sleeping. 

The scene in the sick room, too, now 
changed. The valet, with a stealthy look 

15 


226 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


all around, glided noiselessly to the little 
table at the foot of the bed. He pressed 
his hand to his heart, — so one would have 
thought, — but in reality he drew a small vial 
from his vest pocket ; and then* he looked 
again all around, at the door of the ante- 
room slightly ajar, at the two windows 
with their heavy curtains close drawn, at 
the bay-window at the end, whose curtains, 
longer and heavier than the rest, swept the 
floor, and folded together at the door that 
led into the entry, the door through which 
Carl had come with the medicine ; and then, 
after one shuddering glance at the white 
face upon the pillow, so near him, he let 
fall, drop by drop, the contents of the vial 
he still kept hidden in hand, into a wine- 
glass, that stood upon the table, partly filled 
with water. 

He raised his head ; great drops of perspi- 
ration were on his forehead, and down fell 
his hand with a crash that set everything on 
the table jingling and ringing, and the little 
vial rolled in full sight upon the floor. He 







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The Game Finished 


Paij^e 227 


THE GAME FINISHED. 


227 


made a motion as if to throw himself upon 
his knees, and then, as if he dared not, he 
raised his shaking hands to his face, trying 
thus to shut out what he saw. And what 
was it that he saw? The door that led 
into the entry — it was shut fast the second 
before — was open now, and just on the 
threshold stood a little figure in a long loose 
robe of white, that gathered closely about 
its neck, hung in straight folds to the floor, 
leaving only the little bare feet visible. It 
was the slight, girlish figure, the golden 
hair, the beautiful face, of Ary. Her hair 
was shaken all over her shoulders, and her 
face was like marble. She looked like a 
spirit, and her father thought she was one. 

He tried to speak her name, but it froze on 
his lips. 

Don’t you know me, father?” said Ary. 
"What is the matter? What makes you so 
frightened ? ” 

The sound of her voice brought him out 
of his nightmare of terror, and he answered 
confusedly, "I did not know it was you. 
You were burnt. That was Burt’s revenge.” 


228 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


” Did you think I was dead? O, I wish I 
was, I wish I was, before I found out — 

" WJiat have you found out ? ” interrupted 
her father, quickly, with a breath more cour- 
age, while his eyes glanced uneasily at the 
vial on the floor. 

" I heard them talking,” she went on, ” and 
I got up out of bed and ran just as I was. 
For they are coming. They are right be- 
hind me ? ” 

There was a .slight noise down stairs. 
Ary sprang to her father’s side, and clung 
to him tremblingly. "They have come,” 
she whispered. 

Her father put her away. " Let me go,” 
said he, nervously. " I’ll try the bay win- 
dow. It’s lower than the rest, and I’ll jump 
for it.” 

His hand was on the curtain, but before 
he could push it aside, the drapery was up- 
lifted from behind, and out stepped Carl. 
Thus suddenly confronted, the wretched 
man staggered backwards, and at the same 
minute, through the door Ary had left open, 
filed a half dozen stalwart men. 


THE GAME FINISHED. 


229 


For a moment the guilty man wavered. 
The day of reckoning had come at last, a 
fearful day to him. A mist was before his 
eyes, and a hundred voices seemed roaring 
in his ears, " Lost, forever lost, lost, lost.” 
Then the very depths of his despair calmed 
him. Everything was clear again, and 
stepping forward with a bow and a smile 
towards those who had just entered, he 
raised the wine-glass of water from the little 
table, and drank its contents at a swallow. 

” Now, gentlemen,” said he, ” lead on ; the 
game is finished.” 

Carl, who had not been quick enough to 
prevent this, now took the wine-glass in his 
hand and touched with his lips the rim. 

” He has poisoned himself,” he said. 

There v/as a low cry of horror, and Ary 
fell heavily forward. Poor child I it was 
more than she could bear. 

One of the men took her in his arms, 
while the others, without losing more time, 
hustled their prisoner from the room. 


230 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH. 


ILLIAM SCHNAPPS, or the person 



▼ ▼ who called himself so, — for he con- 
fessed to having been known by several 
other aliases, — died in a few hours’ time 
from his arrest. The poisonous draught he 
had prepared for another did its work surely 
as swiftly. Hurried thus by his own hand 
into the presence of his Maker, his con- 
science loaded down with a whole lifetime 
of sin and crime, his death-bed was a terri- 
ble one. God preserve us all from any 
approach to it. 

'He gave his real name as Alfred Larkin. 
”An honest name,” — these were his own 
words, — " until I fell in with Bertram Stod- 
dard. He led me on, little by little. I 
remember I began by betting at cards, until 


THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH. 23 1 


at last I knew as much if not more than my 
master.” 

Then he told how they had entered into a 
sort of copartnership together, and ” went 
shares” in every job they undertook; shop- 
lifting, housebreaking, counterfeiting, or 
highway robbery, for nothing came amiss to 
them. They went about from place to 
place, seeking new fields of operation. 
And by some singular chance Larkin was 
always the one to escape detection, while 
his comrade had been so often apprehended 
that he was a marked man among the 
police, and had, as would naturally be the 
case, more laid to his door than any ten 
men were capable of. 

Finally, in some one of his unlawful deeds, 
he got shot in the eye ; and the loss of this 
member interfered sadly with his business. 
He was too well known after that to attempt 
anything at all venturesome. 

From this time forth he became a pen- 
sioner upon his friend’s bounty. But this 
was too one-sided an arrangement to con- 


232 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


tinue long without difficulty. Hard words 
passed more than once between the two. 
Stoddard threatened to turn state’s evidence ; 
but Larkin laughed this to scorn, for by so 
doing Stoddard would cut off his own sup- 
plies. 

Thus matters stood at the time of the 
Wurtzel robbery, the chief mover in this 
being the valet. Being intrusted at times 
with the ke}^ of the safe, and having learned 
all its intricacies, this promised to be an 
easy and paying operation. The valet, 
however, — at least so thought Stoddard, — 
was too grasping ; and he took offence at the 
lion’s share he laid claim to. He concealed 
this feeling, though, agreed to everything, 
and was on hand at the required time. The 
valet unlocked the safe without difficulty, and 
laid his hand on the small casket that con- 
tained the dia^monds, saying, "Go ahead 
now; I’ve got my share.” "Have you?'’ 
was the response of his companion, as he 
leaned forward and made a sudden snatch 
for the casket. Quick as lightning, Larkin 


THE Wages of sin is death. 233 

shoved him back, and swung to the doors of 
the safe. They shut with a click. It was a 
spring lock. 

”If that’s your game, IVe stopped it,” 
said the valet. 

The two men glared at each other. In 
the pale moonlight their features were 
clearly visible. Stoddard was much the 
larger and stronger of the two. " I want 
the diamonds,” said he, resolutely, " and I 
mean to have them.” 

Open the* safe yourself, then.” 

Of course he could not. He was not skil- 
ful enough to pick it. Finally, finding that 
Larkin was firm, and mad with passion, he 
gave him a blow that would have felled an 
ox, and which knocked him senseless to 
the floor. The rest is already known. It 
seems almost incredible that this one man 
could have done what he did alone. It is a 
proof of what a desperate man can do. But 
having succeeded in getting away with the 
diamonds and all the silver he could con- 
veniently carry, he found that in the end he 


234 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


had overreached himself. He dared not 
offer the stolen articles for sale, for the large 
reward Mr. Wurtzel advertised had put every 
one on the alert. What he read in the paper 
with regard to the critical condition of Wil- 
liam Schnapps also occasioned him uneasi- 
ness. He had not meant to kill him ; and in 
the case of his death, if he confessed, — which 
he probably would, if only for revenge’s 
sake, — it would be " all up,” so he said, with 
him. So he hung about the house the first 
few days of the valet’s illness, watching 
those that came and went, and gleaning, by 
cautious inquiries, the news he wanted. This 
was the time of Philip’s first meeting with 
him. At the second meeting in the woods, 
when he sprained his ankle, Stoddard, had 
learned of the good that was to happen 
to the valet (the fortune that sprang, as it 
were, from the ill he had done him), and 
claimed a part. This, however, exasperated 
by his late treatment, Larkin refused him 
on the spot. This decision nothing could 
turn. And finally, the desperado conceived 


THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH. 235 

the fiendish plan of setting fire to the house 
in Shark’s Alley, and then fleeing the coun- 
try. To have Ary perish in the flames was 
his design — a design which her father be- 
lieved accomplished until her sudden ap- 
pearance in Mr. Wurtzel’s chamber, and one 
which she could not have averted had she 
been in her attic room that night as usual. 
But instead she had been in the lower pas- 
sage, waiting impatiently for the departure 
of the gamblers, and wondering what had 
become of her prisoner, whom she had in- 
tended to release before their arrival. 

As to the man who had been seen running 
on the burning roof, who had fallen with the 
wall, and been buried under the smoking 
ruins, he was, as had been surmised, Burt 
Stoddard. The arrest of Larkin was due 
to him. On arriving at the hospital, he re- 
vived wonderfully, so that he was able to 
speak, — not very plainly, but still so as 
to be understogd. He told of the slow poison 
Mr. Wurtzel’s valet had been administering, 
day by day, for months, to his master ; how 


236 THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 

the fortune he had left him in his will had 
been his death-warrant; that he was being 
murdered by inches, so that Larkin could 
have it the sooner. 

Upon this statement a squad of police 
were at once despatched for the arrest of 
Larkin. Among them was Philip’s father, 
and Philip, who had begged so hard to ac- 
company them, that he was taken. He was, 
however, to stop at his uncle George’s while 
the arrest was being made, for, as his father 
said, ” It was likely to be a desj)ut piece of 
business, and boys had best be out of the 
way.” 

This short and unceremonious visit of 
Philip led to another link in the chain of 
circumstances. It was the cause of Ary’s 
midnight .appearance at J^fr. Wurtzel’s. 
When she made her escape from the burn- 
ing house, — for escape she did, — she held 
tightly in her clasp the note she had taken 
from Barney’s pocket during the moment 
she stood beside him in the entry, amidst the 
smoke and flames. Under one of the street 


THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH. 237 

lamps she read its contents breathlessly. 
There were but three things in it that were 
of interest to her, the name William 
Schnapps, the fact that he was valet to a 
Mr. Wurtzel, and the name of the town writ- 
ten with the date at the top of the sheet. 

She made up her mind what to do in a 
flash. "Thornewood,” said she, ” I do not 
know where that is, but I’ll find out. I’ll go 
there, and see if this William Schnapps is 
my father. I’ll get him to come away before 
anything happens.” 

Then she walked swiftly away. In a few 
minutes she came to a depot. The doors 
were open. It was lighted up. People 
were hurrying along the platform. The 
car-bell was sounding, the engine puffing. 

Ary stepped uj; to the ticket office. The 
man inside was leaning over the window 
talking to a friend ; so Ary stood still there a 
minute. Then he looked round at her. 

” How far is it to Thornewood ? ” she in- 
quired. 

^'Twelve miles,’’ answered the man. 


238 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


” There’s the last train just started ; ” and with 
that he slammed down the window, and Ary 
turned to see the last car gliding from the 
depot. She sat down upon a bench that was 
ranged against the wall beside her, asking 
herself what she should do next. 

The depot was deserted now. The bag- 
gage-master turned the gas down low, and 
departed, whistling ; the ticket man had 
already gone, and the little figure — sitting 
on the low bench — was unnoticed. And 
when it gathered itself up and marched 
steadily across the platform, and stepped off 
resolutely upon the track, and was lost al- 
together in the darkness — nobody knew. 

It was about nine o’clock the next night, 
that uncle George, coming home from the 
tin-shop, stumbled over sQmething, just by 
his gate. He found, on examining, that 
it was a young girl, apparently lifeless, 
cold, and drenched with dew. Summoning 
his wife to his help, the two carried her in, 
and brought her out of her faint; for that 
was all that proved to be the matter, except 


THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH. 239 

that she was covered with dust, and so jaded 
and weary as to be hardly able to speak. 
They fed her, and then Mrs. Sands took oft' 
her soiled clothes and put her to bed. The 
girl said, faintly, two or three times, ”I 
musn’t stop to rest. Only a little farther to 
go. I know where it is.” But when her 
head touched the pillow, her eyes shut in- 
stantly, and she went sound asleep. She 
was in the little bed-room adjoining the sit- 
ting-room. 

They had not retired after this little epi- 
sode, when Philip came. The story he told 
dumbfounded them. He gave them all the 
particulars, and as he was very much ex- 
cited, he spoke in a loud, excited tone. But 
the astonishment of his uncle and aunt pre- 
vented them from noticing it. It awoke, 
however, the stranger in the little bed-room. 
After a while she sat upright, then with 
a spring she was out of bed, out of the low 
window upon the grass outside, and away 
up the road, as if fteeing for her life. Thus 
it was that Ary reached Mr. Wurtzel’s in 


240 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


advance of the officers. She did not pass 
them, but came by a more direct road, that 
had been pointed out to her just before, 
thoroughly exhausted, she had sunk down 
by uncle George Ruggles’ gate. She had 
wandered out of her way more than once 
since her resolute starting. Indeed, so many 
times had she missed her path and retraced 
her steps, that, after walking all night and 
all day, she had only arrived at Mr. Rug- 
gles’ little cottage. 

But "the wages of sin are death,” and the 
daughter’s efforts to save her father were 
useless. 

The punishment of Larkin’s accomplice, 
Burt Stoddard, also bore out the Bible de- 
cree. In a prison-cell, blind, crippled, help- 
less, alone, with the memory of a lost and 
ruined past, he suffered a death-in-Ufe ^ a 
daily, hourly torture, that would have an 
end only when he passed across the limits 
of this world into that of the hereafter. 

There is one more character, — Dr. 
Toolu, — whose darkened life we must fol- 


THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH. 24 1 


low to a close. He was arrested and tried 
for abetting and aiding Alfred Larkin in his 
attempt to poison his master. He it was 
who had provided the poisonous drug which 
the valet had administered for months with- 
out suspicion. As will be remembered, he 
saw Stoddard just after he had been hurt. 
The second visit he paid him, the next 
morning, was with an object in view. He 
went expecting to find him dead, or dying. 
Though disappointed, he gave it as his 
opinion to the valet, that there was noth- 
ing to fear from him. "He is hurt too badly 
about the head,” he said, " to ever come to 
his senses.” 

It was in the morning he said this, the 
second time the two had consulted together 
that day. The first meeting had been of 
the valet’s seeking. Reading in the news- 
paper of the fire, and the man so badly 
hurt, who was surmised to be the notorious 
Burt Stoddard, he took alarm at once. He 
conjectured — and correctly — that this was 
the way Stoddard had taken his revenge. 

16 


242 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


His love for his child was well known, and 
of course Stoddard’s object was to destroy 
her, and rob him of what he held dearest on 
earth. Crazed with fear, he sought Dr. 
Toolu, who thought it best that he himself 
should proceed again to the city, and find 
out about* Ary. There is hardly need to 
say that his search was fruitless. The ru- 
mor got round that the girl had been burned 
to death. Indeed, some went so far as to say 
they had seen her a moment standing at an 
upper window, and then the wall had fallen 
in, and she had disappeared with a shriek. 
The doctor compressed his lips and bent his 
eyebrows, as if in thought. It was then he 
called to see the injured man again. Af- 
ter that he rode swiftly home. He held 
out no hope to the wretched father, almost 
overwhelmed with the suddenness of the 
shock, and he did not gloss matters over. 

" There is not the least doubt about it,” he 
said, coolly. "The girl is dead fast enough. 
Now listen to me.” 

The doctor then unfolded his plan, which 


THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH. 243 

was to ” finish up the job ” — this meant Mr. 
Wurtzel — that night, instead of having him 
linger along a month or two more, as they 
had intended. 

"There’s a little more risk,” said the doc- 
tor ; " but I guess we’ll pull through. That 
fellow that’s hurt may get so as to peach on 
us by and by, as you say. So perhaps the 
sooner done, the better.” 

The doctor’s plan was finally decided 
upon, though Larkin at first demurred. He 
was so miserable that he felt a distaste to the 
whole business. The death of Ary filled 
him with a horror of his unholy deed, and 
he would like to have stopped where he was, 
and gone away himself, leaving Mr. Wurt- 
zel to get well and live out his natural days. 

* The doctor, however, prevailed, and the 
rest has been already told. The doctor went 
to State Prison for a long term of years. If 
he ever lives to come out, he will be an old, 
old man. He has his bench and his tools, 
and he bends low over his work, especially 
if there are visitors in. He pegs shoes. He 


244 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


learned the trade on first entering, and he will 
peg shoes every day, and all day long, 
through all the long, long years of his sen- 
tence. This is a sort of death too. 

One more explanation and our chapter is 
ended. Suspecting foul play Carl had man- 
aged to slip into Mr. WurtzeFs room unob- 
served on the night of William Schnapp’s 
arrest, and from behind the curtains of the 
bay window had watched every movement. 
This action led to the discovery that Mr. 
Wurtzel was the uncle so long sought. 
Thus, by his uncle’s influence and money 
he was saved. He received his good for- 
tune humbly and gratefully, never forget- 
ting how narrowly he had escaped ; never 
forgetting, either, that it was by no merit of 
his own, but that a merciful Providence had 
interposed to save from the effects of his 
recklessness and folly. 


CONCLUSION. 


245 


CHAPTER XX. 


CONCLUSION. 


CARRIAGE stood, one morning, 



^ before Mr. Sands’ door — a very ele- 
gant carriage, with garnet plush robes, and 
two superb horses. It attracted a great deal 
of attention in the little common street. It 
was Mr. Wurtzel’s carriage. 

And in the little sitting-room was Mr. 
Wurtzel himself, and his nephew, Carl 
Mentz ; or Carl Wurtzel, rather, since he 
had no right to a name which his father had 
only assumed. They were talking with Phil 
and Mr. Sands. 

Mr. Wurtzel had brought Philip’s reward, 
or rather the check for the money. He had 
thanked him for having been the means 
of restoring to him what had been stolen. 
He had also shaken him kindly by the hand. 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


” Wal,” said his father, beaming with the 
honors done his son, ”Phil has had the 
dumps ever since the night that poor rascal 
of a Larkin was done for. I hope this’ll 
perk him up a little, and make him more 
like himself agin.” 

Mr. Wurtzel glanced more closely at Phil- 
ip, whose eyes soberly sought the carpet. 

My young friend,” said he, kindly, ” very 
probably cannot get over the shock of my 
valet’s sudden death. I confess that I have 
not, as yet, myself; but,” — and he took 
Philip’s hand again in his own, — "while 
we deplore the deed, we must remember 
that it was not of our ordering. He took 
his fate in his own hands, and he alone must 
answer for it. Is it not so ? ” 

"Yes, sir,” answered Philip, faintly, 
though he did not take in the meaning of 
Mr. Wurtzel’s words very clearly. 

All that had been clear to him ever since 
that never-to-be-forgotten night was Ary, as 
he had seen her then — Ary sobbing as if 
her heart would break, wringing her hands. 


CONCLUSION. 


247 


and calling, ”0, father, father, father,” so 
wildly and pitifully that it had brought tears 
into his eyes. 

It had made him feel guilty. It seemed 
as though he was the whole cause of her 
grief. How he wished, to the very bottom 
of his heart, that he had ”let it all alone.” 
And he felt the same way now, although a 
month or more had passed, and he had seen 
Ary a number of times since, for her home, 
now, was at his uncle George’s. 

So, now, when Mr. Wurtzel spoke, Ary’s 
sad face was between him and the words, 
and when Mr. Wurtzel held out a piece of 
paper (it was the check), saying, ” My busi- 
ness here to-day : — the first day I have been 
out since my sickness — was to bring you 
your reward,” he starts back almost in dis- 
gust. 

” I don’t want it,” he cries ; " I won’t touch 
it.” 

It looks to him almost as if they were pay- 
ing him for killing Ary’s father. Just as if 
his hunting him down for the robbery had 
anything to do with that I 


248 TIIS YOUNG DETECTIVE. 

" It’s no go,” observed Philip’s father, with 
a sorrowful shake of his head. "He takes 
to melancholy as natural as a fish, — no, that 
ain’t it, — he’s as melancholy as a fish, — 
no, that ain’t it, either — ” Here he made 
so long a pause that Mr. Wurtzel took 
advantage of it. 

" It’s nothing to his discredit, at any rate,” 
said he. " But feelings at his age are liable 
to change. Sonie time this matter will look 
differently to him.” 

As he spoke,, he tendered the bank check 
to Mr. Sands, who took it awkwardly enough, 
and held it up to the light, as if it were a 
hen’s egg, and he was very much afraid that 
it was addled. 

The presentation over, Mr. Wurtzel de- 
parted, leaning heavily — for he was still 
feeble — upon the arm of his nephew. 
Philip watched them as they got into the 
carriage and drove away. He noticed how 
happy they looked. 

And then he thought. What if he had let 
Ary’s father alone? What if everybody 


CONCLUSION. 249 

had? Then he wouldn’t have been looking 
out of the window to-day at these two. An 
innocent life would have been taken in place 
of a guilty one. The good would have suf- 
fered, the wicked gone free. He had not 
thought of this before. 

A half hour later there was a bold pull at 
the bell, and Philip, answering it, discovered 
Barney O’Roach upon the doorstep. He 
was capering up and down like mad, and 
his mouth had such a wide grin upon it, that 
his face was cut into two pieces. 

He did not wait for Philip to question him, 
but broke out in an hilarious brogue, ”Och ! 
me darlin’, me fortune’s come slap at last. It 
was so suddint like, that I pinched meself 
black and blue before I’d not belave it all a 
drame. Whist, now, an’ I’ll tell ye.” 

Barney’s voice rose towards the end into 
a perfect howl of joy. 

"Come into the house,” said Philip; for 
Barney’s antics, together with the noise he 
made, were attracting the notice of the 
passers-by. 


250 THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 

So, stepping into the entry, Barney told 
his story : How Mr. Wurtzel and Carl had 
gone from Philip’s house immediately to his ; 
how Mr. Wurtzel, in gratitude for what he 
had done for his nephew, had offered his 
mother one of his cottages, rent free, for her 
life-time. Her other wants were also to be 
provided for, and Barney was to be taken at 
once into the special service of the "young 
masther,” as he called Carl. 

Here was another happy result ; and when 
Barney — after turning a double somer- 
sault — threw up his tattered hat, and called 
for "three times three,” Philip had to join in 
the last round, though he remembered him- 
self directly when he saw his mother’s head 
pop out of the sitting-room door, and heard 
her sharp voice asking, "What’s all that 
yellin’ about?” 

He shuffled Barney out, and got him off 
by promising to " come round bime-hy ; ” and 
then he closed the front door, feeling almost 
guilty. 

At dinner time his father hemmed and 


CONCLUSION. 


251 


hawed, and finally, with a great effort, said, 
with hesitation, — trying all the time to 
speak carelessly, — "Well, Phil, are you 
ready for the question? What do you want 
done with your two thousand dollars ? ” 

He expected some impatient answer. But 
no I After silently considering a minute, he 
asked, "Is it my very own? ” 

" Sartain !” 

"I can do just what I want to with it?” 
His father nodded. 

Here Mr. Sands was reprimanded by his 
wife. "I suppose,” said she, "if he wanted 
to throw it in the gutter, you’d be silly 
enough to let him.” 

" I don’t want to throw it in the gutter,” 
said Philip. 

" What then ? ” asked his father. 

Philip blushed slightly, but without low- 
ering his eyes, answered, " I must go out to 
uncle George’s first.” 

In the afternoon he rode out in the horse 
cars. All the way there sat beside him a 
lady dressed in black. Her veil was down. 


252 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


and he could not see her face. She went 
quite to the end of the route (she was the 
only one besides Philip that did), and they 
both stepped from the car together. 

She put up her veil and glanced about as 
if undecided what direction to take. Then, 
stepping a little nearer to Philip, she said, 
” Can you tell me where Mr. George 
Ruggles lives? He is a tinman, and lives 
about half a mile from here.” 

” I am going to his house myself,” he re- 
plied. ” He is my uncle.” And now her 
veil was up, he was puzzled to think whom 
she looked like. Her face seemed strangely 
familiar. She walked along beside him for 
some time in silence. 

At last she said, abruptly, ” Do you know 
anything of a young girl that lives there of 
the name of Larkin ? ” She caught her 
breath as she spoke the last word, as if it 
choked her. 

"You mean Ary,” began Philip; and at 
the same time it flashed across him who it 
was the lady looked like. 


CONCLUSION. 


253 


"Ary?” interrupted the lady, all in a 
tremble ; " is that her name ? ” And she sat 
right down on a big stone that lay by the 
road-side, and covered her face with her 
hands. 

Philip stood beside her rather puzzled. In 
a minute she looked up at him. " I am her 
mother,” she said ; " I was Alfred Larkin's 
wife.” ^ 

And now Philip looked startled as he 
asked, "What are you going to do with her? 
Are you going to take her away?” 

"I shall take her home with me. But,” 
and she arose and walked along, "I am 
wasting time. I must see her first. I shall 
know then if she is really mine, my own 
child, that I have not seen since she was a 
little baby. Something seems to tell me 
that I am going to find her. The name, too, 
is almost a proof. Nobody else would be 
likely to have such a name.” Before they 
reached the house, she explained to Philip 
her sudden appearance. 

She had lived happily with her husband, 


254 


THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


Alfred Larkin, until his acquaintance with 
Burt Stoddard. After that came neglect, 
unkindness, and, finally, downright cruelty. 
She suffered all in the hopes of winning him 
from the terrible life into which he was sink- 
ing. But her endeavors only exasperated 
him ; and one day she woke to the misery of 
finding herself deserted, and, worse still, her 
child, her only one, was gone. From that 
time she had never heard from her, nor her 
husband. She knew not whether they were 
living or dead. After doing her utmost to 
find them, she had given up in despair, and 
taking the name of Somers, — her name be- 
fore marriage, — she had worked her way 
up from one occupation to another, until at 
the present time she carried on a thriving 
millineiy establishment in one of the largest 
cities of a neighboring state. She had read 
of the arrest and death of Larkin, but she 
had missed the paragraph that spoke of his 
interview with his daughter, "a young lady,” 
so the paper stated, ” of prepossessing ap- 
pearance, apparently thirteen or fourteen 
3^ears of age.” 


CONCLUSION. 


255 


It was two or three weeks afterwards, 
while looking over a pile of old papers, that 
this paragraph met her eye. She had 
started immediately, and arrived only that 
morning in the city. At the office of the 
chief of police she had been referred to the , 
one who had had charge of Larkin’s arrest. 
And thus she had received the information 
that brought her to Thornewood, and to un- 
cle George’s. 

And when, a little later, Philip saw Ary 
clasped tight in her mother’s arms, his last 
regret, that he hadn’t " let it all alone,” van- 
ished. 

He made such a short stay at his uncle’s 
that his cousin Seth declared, looking rather 
vexed, that "it wan’t no visit at all.” 

Philip, however, was more than satisfied. 
He had gone there with a half-formed idea 
of offering his two thousand dollars to Ary 
as a recompense. But her mother was a 
recompense beyond price. And he arrived 
home in a very happy frame of mind. 

His father, noting the change at once, 


256 THE YOUNG DETECTIVE. 


accosted him with, "Well, whafs up now, 
Phil?” 

"I think,” said Philip, making a stand, 
and lifting his hand to give his words em- 
phasis, — "I think, after all, that it is right 
that wicked folks should be hunted down. 
They deserve it. And I do want to be a 
detective when I grow up, so as to make 
the wrong right and the innocent happy, and 
— my two thousand dollars you may put in 
the bank.” 

"Aha ! sly boots,” said his father, tweak- 
ing him by the ear'; "I suppose that reward 
has nothing to do with your wanting to be 
a detective — eh ? ” 

"No,” answered Philip, seriously. "I 
just begin to see that the reason I felt so 
bad about Larkin was, because I worked 
for money. And now, what I mean to work 
for is a good motive. * And then, no matter 
what happens, that will make it all right in 
the end.” 








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